How We Meet Fate
by Aki and Tenshi
Summary: It's not about the circumstances fate deals us, but the how we meet them... An AU where the Argents are werewolves and the Hales are hunters. Motives and allegiances have shifted, but it still all starts when Scott McCall is bitten by a wolf in the forest. An ensemble fic.
1. (1)

It's not about the circumstances fate deals you, but how you meet them… An AU where the Argents are werewolves, the Hales are hunters, Sheriff Stiliniski is just a deputy, Isaac is Scott's humans best friend, but there are still an eerie amount of murders in Beacon Hills. Allegiances and motives have shifted, but it all still starts when Scott gets bit by a wolf on the full wolf. This is an ensemble story.

* * *

(1)

"Dude, I need to get out tonight. Let's get out."

There is an anxiousness to Isaac's tone that Scott immediately reacts to. He had spent too many younger years unobservant to the details of Isaac, missed things he shouldn't have, that he is always observant now.

Isaac is on Scott's front lawn by the time Scott gets downstairs. Isaac as his cell clutched in his left hand and a bottle-shaped paper bag in the other. Scott doesn't look forward to tomorrow, to the first day of school with a hang-over, but there are some things more important than the first day of school.

They take their bicycles to the nearest edge of the Beacon Hills Preserve, quiet they while ride. It's not until they walked several yards into the forest does the stiffness of Isaac's shoulders relax. He twists off the bottle. Scott doesn't even know what it is. That's not the important part. Isaac takes a sip, grimaces, hands it over to Scott. They do this for a while, walking with no direction. They know this corner of Preserve well.

"I can fucking breathe out here," Isaac says. He swears whenever he slides from tipsy to drunk and never any time else. Isaac dad hadn't let Isaac get away with swearing. It was a thing that stuck.

Isaac gets hit with bought of claustrophobia too, another thing that stuck. Only getting somewhere as wide open as the preserve seems to make him at ease with any repeat accuracy. No room was big enough, and even outside, the lines of streets and the upward walls of houses and buildings seemed to press in on him. Isaac tried to explain to Scott one time. Scott's not sure he understood completely, but he could understand enough.

They drink and wander and don't talk all that much. The preserve isn't that big as to get significantly lost. Pick a direction and walk, you'll find a road or a trail or the edge.

"Shit, is that the police?" Isaac says. Ahead, there are tromping feet, barking dogs, the glares of flashlights. Their teenage and alcohol-addled brains aren't smart enough in the fight-or-flight moment to realize that a group deputies out at this time of night probably weren't going to care that much about underage drinking, that they were dealing with more major crimes. Scott and Isaac take off running in the opposite direction.

Five or so minutes of sprinting on uneven ground and Scott's heaving uneven breaths. He digs his inhaler out of his hoodie pocket, shakes it, takes a huff. He looks around. Isaac's nowhere in sight. He's about to call out and then remembers the police. So instead Scott takes a guess in which direction the bikes are and goes for it.

The next fifteen minutes are an eternity and a blink of an eye wrapped up in what is something life changing. The pack of deer that nearly trample him to death. Then the thing – the beast, a predictor, a _wolf_— that scared the deer, coming after Scott. He gets away alive, but wounded.

…

He finds Isaac waiting for him at the bikes. Scott's head is pounding, his side hurts. There's a bite mark in his side. He shows Isaac, but refuses to go to the hospital. It's not bleeding that bad. His shots are up-to-date.

It hurts, riding back home. It takes them double the time to get back to house than it took to get to the preserve, going slow and having to stop to give Scott breaks. Isaac keeps looking at Scott with these wide, worried, guilty eyes.

"It's not your fault," Scott tells him point blank, more than once, during the trip. Isaac hadn't said anything, but he needed to hear it. Turns out coming out of an abusive home makes you blame yourself a lot for shit that's not really your fault. That was something Scott's Mom had explained to him. She was the one, after all, that had made that deciding phone call.

"Hey," Isaac says just before Scott sneaks back into his house. "Think of it this way. Maybe you'll turn into a werewolf." It's an attempt to lighten the mood, maybe more for Isaac than for Scott.

Scott nods. He just wants to crash in bed more than anything else in the world right now.

…

First day of school. The bite mark is still there, but not as bad as Scott remembered it. The idea that he even could get bitten by a wolf, in Beacon Hills of all places, sounds ridiculous and abstract in his own mind. It was like last night was a dream, though that might have been caused by the alcohol.

He hauls his lacrosse gear, though it's probably a hopeless case – like always – through the crowded hallway. Not being Jackson Whittemore, no one gets out of his way. Hell, not being Jackson Whittemore, no one offers to haul his gear to the locker room for him.

He totally rams into Stiles at one point. Which isn't all that surprising, because sometimes you just didn't see Stiles there.

"Sorry, man," Scott says, quickly. Then to say something more, "Have a good summer?"

Stiles shrugs. "Normal. You know."

Scott didn't know. He didn't think anyone knew what normal was for Stiles. They had been close friends ones, way back, but at one point Stiles had drifted away from Scott, away from everyone, everything.

Scott doesn't know what else to say, so he says nothing and focuses on getting to the locker room without any more collisions.

…

It hits him in homeroom. Everything stings too loud as he hears it. All the kids, their hearts and feet, an uneven, un-symphonic cacophony. Scott presses his palms over his ears to no avail. Isaac is looking at him funny, but the bell rings, and Isaac can't ask any questions. The bell pushes his head past those noises, but he now hears a fly in the corner like its right by his head. He screws up his eyes again, like when the bell had rung, pushes past the fly, and there's a solo voice of a girl.

"I can't believe I didn't bring a pen."

Scott looks out the window, where he just knows the voice is coming from. Out on the empty lawn of the school, there she is. Riffling through a satchel bag, late for class, a little frazzled – curly hair not quite tamed – but Scott thinks she's beautiful-looking all the same.

Ten minutes later she's introduced in their classroom as a new student. She takes a seat in the empty desk in front of Scott. He holds a spare pen over her shoulder. She looks over her shoulder at him, grins as she takes it. She's more beautiful up close. If there is anything odd behind her grinning eyes, he ignores it in favor of taking the sunshine that is a grin from a girl like her.

She turns around back front in her seat before saying, "Thanks."

"Welcome," he whispers back.

…

"I love your jacket," says a red-headed girl to Allison in the hallway. Allison instantly knows her type, can smell the layer upon layer of products piled onto her person. Allison had been in and out of enough high schools. This girl was popular, but perhaps not well-liked. Rich, fashionable, concerned with appearances in all possible ways. "Where did you get it?" the redhead finishes.

"My mom is –" Allison starts, then has to correct herself. "Was –" she starts again. It tastes sour in her mouth. She has to swallow to keep herself from vomiting. "A fashion buyer for a boutique back in San Francisco."

The 'was' could have been a lot of things. While this redheaded girl still smiles, there is a knowing in her eyes. Perhaps she's more intuitive than Allison's assumed 'type.'

"Well," the redhead says. "She had good taste."

No questions, no pity, just stating. Allison smiles, but she's sure it's a grimace. This girl is also kinder than Allison assumed.

"I'm Lydia." She links her arm through Allison's. "Eat lunch with me."

Part of Allison wants to recoil. She's not here to make friends. A bigger part of her protests, a familiar voice in her head, demanding, 'Fit it. Act normal. Don't draw attention to yourself.'

Allison lets Lydia lead her to the cafeteria by the arm. After the process of standing in line to get food, Lydia ushers her to a table where only one other person sits.

"This is Danny," Lydia introduces off hand, almost like she doesn't care. She doesn't bother with reverse introductions.

"Allison. I'm new."

"I know," Danny says. "You're in my homeroom."

Lunch passes. Lydia speaks enough for the three of them. No one else joins them. Again, for the third time, Lydia defies 'type.' Allison expected popular. Three strikes means something.

A pause in the conversation arrives and Allison asks if Danny and Lydia are a couple.

Danny's eyebrows shoot up in a 'oh, hell no' way.

Lydia just laughs. "I'm not his type," she says.

"And I have a boyfriend," Danny adds.

"Oh." It makes a whole of more sense than the couple option. Couples tended to smell more like each other than these two did. But they sure as hell didn't act like close friends.

"He's my ex-boyfriend's ex-best friend," Lydia says, but elaborates none. Instead she asks Danny his thoughts on potential lacrosse team first line.

…

Lydia is Allison's key to camouflage, being a normal teenager in high school. Or that's what Allison tells herself so she doesn't feel guilty about letting Lydia take her to watch the lacrosse practice after school.

It's hard to tell herself she's allowed to have friends with all the warning her mom had pumped into her mind. That every human is a potential enemy. That being safe, being strong, keeping the remaining threads of the Argent pack alive is the most important thing. All that counterbalanced with the need to keep up appearances: normal, happy, human.

Sometimes Allison wonders if her mother had ever been less, well, _intense. _Because the woman had her softer sides, Allison knew them personally, but she left little margin of error for her daughter. Having your entire family murdered by hunters changed you; it had changed Allison.

But there's an appeal to watch a lot of boys run around on a field and into each other. She doesn't understand lacrosse, but there is something about a team that is familiar, that is like pack.

The wind shifts. The scents of all the boys – their sweat, the dirt on them, the musk of their well-worn pads, a few colognes not worn off – overwhelm her. But something sticks out as distinctly non-human.

Her mind flashes back to the boy from homeroom. The one who knew she needed a pen, who heard her barely whispered 'thanks,' who had just felt off to her. Not human; not werewolf. Just… festering, even though there had seemed nothing cruel about him.

With so many people, with the wind, it was impossible to distinguish one person's scent from another, but it's quite clear when watching the players out on the field which is the one with the inhuman reflexes.

"Who is number eleven?" Lydia says, impressed. Lydia had said she was attending the practice to support Danny, but that reason was fake, or at least the least of her reasons. It was quite clear it had been about (a) scowling at her ex-boyfriend and (b) scouting out a new boyfriend.

"He's in my homeroom," Allison said automatically.

Lydia purses her lips, gives Allison an eyeballing. "You don't remember Danny from homeroom and you remember him? Have a crush much?"

"No, no." Allison doesn't have time for friends; she definitely doesn't have time for dating.

"Claim him now if you do. Or I'll go after him myself. I see a new lacrosse star right there." She's twirling hair around her finger and looks absolutely devilish as she does it. Allison finds herself liking this in Lydia when she had been turned off by it in other girls. But Lydia is so unabashed.

Allison likes Lydia. One day, and that's it. Even if she didn't, it would be no good to let an unsuspecting girl go after what Allison suspects is a newly turned werewolf.

"Alright, I claim him." Allison can't help it that the blush on her face as she says this feels real.

But she shouldn't be. She shouldn't be blushing over boys when less than twelve hours ago she was burying half her mother's body by the ruins of their old home.

"Invite him to my party this Friday," Lydia says.

"You're having a party?" Allison asks.

"I always have a party the first week of school. Oh, yeah, you're invited. And bring eleven."

"Scott," Allison volunteers. She knows his name for the time he got called on in class, because she was paying attention to him, even then.

"That's Scott McCall under the gear. Hmm."

"What?"

"Last year he sucked."

…

Allison stalked Scott after lacrosse practice to a veterinary clinic in town where she supposed he had an afterschool job. Then she waited. No one looked twice at her as she sat in plain sight. No one expected a pretty-faced teenage girl of much, much less wrong-doing.

Allison waited with the patience of a predator. It got dark. Eventually, the veterinarian left, leaving Scott alone in the building.

It was easy enough to snatch a dog from a yard. While only a beta herself, even the weakest of werewolves held some measure of alpha status over regular canines. It took more finesse to keep them calm then to get them scared, but Allison had finesse, for all the good it did her.

"I found this guy wondering around lost," Allison says lifting up the small dog in her arms. "I didn't know where to take him."

"You found the right place." This Scott has a nice smile.

He leads her back into an examination room. She places the dog onto the table. He fiddles with the dog's collar, which holds no tag.

"Most pets have a microchip these days." The dog begins to lick at Scott's hand.

"You're good with him," Allison says.

"It's sort of my job," Scott shrugs. "And you good with him too. I don't think a lot of people would stop in the rain to help a lost dog."

"I'm not most people," Allison says, but not with the meaning Scott had intended.

"I know." He's staring at her dazed, and it's almost too easy.

"Lydia Martin's having a party on Friday. Come with me."

…

"Christ, Derek, perk up. You'd think we were heading to a funeral with all your brooding," Laura teases from the driver's seat. As the oldest, she claimed driving the Camero all the way here. Derek was stuck as a passenger with nothing to do for the hours long drive but think.

"This is serious," he tells his sister.

"It's a hunt. Lighten up. It's supposed to be fun."

He gives her a raised eyebrow in response.

They're stuck at a red light. Laura wriggles in her seat. "Come on," she demands with a smile. "This is our first hunt with no chaperones. No parents, no Uncle Peter, just you and me."

Derek nods tightly, not wanting to give anything away. He doesn't see Laura keep glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

Thinking got worse as he saw the name on the signs. Beacon Hills – 30 Miles. Beacon Hills – 5 Miles. Welcome to Beacon Hills. Beacon Hills Shopping Center. He might be getting a little dramatic.

A hunting lifestyle meant he moved around more than the typical kid growing up. He had gone to more than one high school, but Beacon Hills High was the one that stood out. He hadn't even graduated from there, but his time here was at the forefront of him teenage memories.

A lot of regrets, a lot of… but he couldn't show it. He couldn't let Laura know, let anyone know, and she was already suspicious of his behavior. Lock it up, Derek. Lock it up. Internalize it. Blame yourself, but don't show it.

…

There was someone coming towards her house. A teenage boy, completely human, Probably not a threat for he was both clumsy and gawkey in his own skin.

As he came closer it was obvious the house was his destination. He paused outside on the ground. Stared up at the old building, then at his foundation, then at the ground. He moved closer to something – the blooms of wolfsbane that grew over her mother's grave.

He crouched down next to it, examining. He reached a hand forward, and Allison didn't know if his intention was to examine or destroy. It was then she decided to make her presence.

"Don't." Her voice cut off his action. He stands.

They stare at each other for a moment.

"What're you doing here?" she says, but it's not with the harshness.

"Allison Argent," the boy says. It less to her than a label. He glances up at the ruined house. "Argent," he repeats.

Allison blinks, slowly. It's a weary gesture. "This is private property."

"Do you want me to go?" the boy asks.

She tilts her head when she looks at him now. He has suddenly grown interesting to her. "Why are you here?"

He tells her, no hesitance. "The fire… it happened two months after my mom died. My dad, he's a deputy. He was assigned the case. He had been getting better, and then… He never solved it. Not that I need to tell you that. He took it hard. He never got better after that."

Allison had stepped closer during his speech, but they are still far apart.

"Better?" she asks. Why? Because she sees something there in this boy's face, his posture, something she recognizes in herself. Beyond that, him coming out here, recognizing her name, making a connection, making a move… he had potential. Whether dangerous or friendly was yet to be determined.

"Less drinking. Less constant bouts of depression," the boy answers. He shakes his head. His fingers twitch at his sides. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be making your big tragedy mine." He ducks away. He's about to leave, retreat, runaway. That would be the end of it. Allison doesn't want it to be the end of it.

"Wait." She knows him from school. Maybe there was a name to go with it. "Stiles, right?"

He nods. Yeah, Stiles.

"I lost my mom recently." Her tone is cool, crisp, and hard. There is little sadness and a lot of something else. It's the first person she had admitted this to out loud. "We were all we had left after." No need to clarify which after she's referring. "Yet, somehow losing her hurts worse."

Her hands are tucked in her jacket pockets, have been the whole time. She glances to the left, toward the house but not at it, then back to Stiles. "There's probably a whole of ways to analyze that." She's tried. "But really one thing I learned. It's not really worth it, to compare griefs. We all feel too much and too complexly to make a hierarchy out of it. You know?"

Stiles nods. It's an honest type of nod where the person is absorbing some knowledge.

He blinks, slowly. "I'm sorry for your lose," he says.

It was something Allison usually hated hearing. Somehow, people never seemed sorry enough. "For yours too," she says.

"Allison," he says, the first time saying her name _to_ her rather than about her. He licks his lips, dares to ask, "What are you doing here?" It clearly means more than when she asked him the exact same.

"I came for answers," she says, steady as a rock.

He kneads his lip through his teeth. "If there is anything I can do." He offers, not as a teenage boy to a girl. But as Stiles to Allison. "I don't know if there is, but I'm… resourceful."

She doesn't accept this offer, but she doesn't reject it. It's not good to cut off potential allies.

"It's going to get dark soon. You should get home. It's not safe out here in the dark."

He starts to walk away.

"And Stiles?" she calls after him.

He looks over his shoulder.

"See you at school."

…

Friday night. Scott's dancing with Allison. Lydia Martin herself had welcomed Scott to her party. He was suddenly freaking amazing at lacrosse after being nothing more than a bench-warmer. Scott's not sure what parallel life from his own he had just stepped into.

Isaac was jealous. Not in a damaging friendship type way, but in a "Dude, I'm so jealous way." Isaac had been better than Scott at lacrosse before, but not first line good. He had also had a crush on Lydia, but so did most guys at the school.

He's so close to Allison now, can feel her body heat like it's searing him. Can smell her earthy perfume, and more, just her, that scent of a being, so different yet so striking compared to everyone else crowded around them.

In this moment, new and intense, Scott feels a certain animalistic quality in him. It must be a surge of lust or passion or more likely some mix of the two. The only explanation. But he feels on edge, like he's on some sort of drug. He doesn't understand it at all and suddenly, Allison is there, gripping his hand tighter than tight in hers.

"Let's get out of here," she whispers in his ear. He's not sure it is supposed to sound seductive or urgent, but he follows the order. Allison, he thinks, might be the cause of this affliction, but she also is the one thing that makes sense in detail through it.

…

Scott doesn't know what is happening to him. For Allison, that is more than clear. She was fairly sure he was a new turn, but this only solidified it. He had gotten almost full-on claws forming on the dance floor.

How cruel and irresponsible to turn a human and then not be there to help them adjust, to keep them from killing. Of course, Allison didn't expect much from the mysterious alpha that had killed her mother.

She's driving Scott's car and doesn't think he has even notices the incongruity, or where they're going. That they're driving out of town. Only when she parks does he jerk his head up from the coolness of the window to get his bearings.

"Where are we?" he asks, more confused than suspicious.

"Somewhere private," Allison responds. She gets out of the car and Scott follows.

She leads him up into the house, fingers interlaced. It's in ruins, the house, but it was what was left of her family.

"This is kinda creepy," Scott says, dropping her hand, looking around. His heart rates start to speed up.

"Calm down," Allison says, and it must have been the exactly wrong thing to say, or she said it in the exactly wrong way. She forgot her act. His heart rate doubles.

Shit.

Scott keels over in a type of pain. Allison stares. Approaching would probably only make it worse.

He looks up; his eyes glowing yellow. "What's happening?" he sounds scared, pathetic, and angry all at once.

"Scott, you really need to calm down"

It doesn't help. Her advice is left unheeded. Scott arches up toward the ceiling, lets out a scream that turns into a howl.

He is fully transformed.

Scott in his werewolf form stares at Allison and she stares him back down. They stand like this in a tenuous moment. If he came at her, she was sure she could take him. He might have some muscle on her, but she has years of training and control under her belt.

He doesn't charge her. He doesn't something worse. He runs.

But Allison brought him out here for a reason, because it was distant from the main population of Beacon Hills. Because he is more likely to run into an innocent animal to slaughter than an innocent human. Because she would have time to catch up to him.

So she runs too.

…

"It's like we're going looking for trouble," Derek comments as they tromp through the forest, now dim from night.

Laura rolls her eyes. "That's exactly what we're doing. Did you forget that we're _hunters_, and that someone was torn in two in these woods,… and not even near the full moon."

"I just think we're going in here a little blind," Derek says. He doesn't like these woods in particular. Put him in any other woods in the world and he'd be fine. He knows what's tucked away in this one.

"When did you become Mr. Reconnaissance?" Laura says. She pauses in her trek and peaks an eyebrow at him.

"It's – it's," He tumbles through excuses in his head until he lands on something passable. "It's our first solo hunt. We need to be thorough. Not make mistakes."

She drops her piercing gaze for which Derek is thankful. Somehow his big sister possessed the quality to make him feel more like a child than either of his parents ever did. Derek loved her, and she was easily one of his closest friends… But she didn't know, and there was no way he could explain – and he didn't want to explain – why this place was triggering his hesitance and sullenness.

"Well," she says, not too harsh, "I think the biggest mistake we could make –"

The conversation doesn't go on. Not when both of them detect the sounds of a running body in the woods. It's chaotic and loud, and too fast to be human.

Laura throws out a silent, 'come on' gesture toward Derek and they both start jogging toward the source of the noise.

Laura's ahead of Derek by a few paces. She throws up a hand to indicate for him, for both of them, to stop. The runner, perhaps animal, perhaps werewolf, is approaching.

"Look," Laura breathes. A figure is caught clearly in the moonlight between the branches. It's humanoid but clearly not human. Male, Derek believes from the silhouette. He's slowing in his run, but not stopping. If he continues the path he was moving in, he wouldn't intersect them, but would come within shooting range.

Laura readies her crossbow.

Derek grabs her arm. "The code," he whispers to her. His urgency and borderline panic doesn't overtake his training. He keeps his voice low. They are being the predators to a predator after all. That takes extra care.

"I'm not shooting to kill," Laura hisses back, yanking her arm away from him. She gets the crossbow aimed as the werewolf moves into the best position for her shot. She takes it. It's good.

There is a sound of surprise and panic that is all too human to Derek's ears as the bolt pierces through the werewolf's forearm, tacking him to a tree.

Laura raises her cross bow up to her shoulder, brimming with pride. "I got skills," she boasts to Derek. They both start forward, but barely make it two steps before someone else is running into the moonlight clearing. It's a young women, fast but untransformed. There are no details beyond the silhouettes of the two.

The young woman goes to the tree where the young man is pinned. She pulls out the bolt from his arm, from the tree trunk, with superhuman strength.

"Run!" Derek hears her voice shout. She shoves at the young man's shoulder – no longer in werewolf form – and they both are off and away faster than either of the Hales could hope to follow.

"Shit," Laura swears from next to him. "Two of them? A pack."

There hasn't been a werewolf pack in Beacon Hills since… Don't think about it, Derek. Just don't think.

…

They are maybe a mile or two away before they stop running. Scott is surprised by how not winded he is. He leans against a tree, though, as he catches the breath he was short on.

"What the hell was that?" he asks. Allison's unflustered, as least as Scott can read. In fact, her jaw seems tight in hard emotion. Scott's not sure if he trusts her, but she doesn't quite the enemy she had when they were in the old house.

"Hunters," Allison answers. She's looking slightly over his shoulder, head tilted like she was listening for something.

"Hunting humans?" Scott exclaims. What was going on in the world?

"No." Allison looks at him now. "No. Hunting werewolves."

* * *

This is my first teen wolf fic. I have a lot of logics for why the characters are the way they are and why certain things have changed. So if there is something that doesn't strike your fancy, please give the story the benefit of the doubt and wait to see how it plays out. Also, also, not sure what my update schedule will be because I am starting a new job soon.


	2. (2)

(2)

Scott's sure he didn't hear right.

"There's no such thing as werewolves."

Allison gives him what could only be described as a 'bitch, please' look. "Then how would you explain what just happened to you?"

"Drugs?" Scott volunteers. "Psychotic breakdown?"

"Is a psychotic breakdown preferable to being a werewolf?" Allison retorts shortly.

Scott rubs at the back of his head. His breathing has normalized, but he doesn't feel particularly well. "It would make more sense," he says with a shrug.

Allison is quiet for a moment, then, "Show me the bite."

Scott doesn't need to ask for clarification. He lifts the side of his shirt, his arms feeling heavy. It was healed. He already knows that.

"Is super healing part of your psychotic breakdown?"

Scott has no answer for that. The pieces of his crazy life of this last week start to fall together. Allison must perceive the realization and resignation coming from Scott.

"Don't look so down," Allison says. "This is a gift. Being a werewolf is noble." She's repeating her mom verbatim. It was easy to resent the thing that got her family killed, but Mom would never stand for it. Allison's eyes had flared yellow as she spoke; she was familiar with the sensation of it.

If it hadn't been clear if she had been a werewolf before now, as she hadn't transformed before him yet, it was clear now.

Scott just glares at her. "Why did you do this to me?" he says.

Allison practically winces back at the accusation. "I didn't bite you, Scott."

"Right. So there's just another werewolf running around Beacon Hills."

"Yes," Allison says. "An alpha."

"Alpha?"

Allison rolls her eyes. Newbies. "They're the strongest types of werewolves. The leaders of the packs. That's the one who bit you, who turned you. In a way he or she was claiming you. As a beta, I couldn't have turned you. You're a beta too."

"What does it mean, claiming me?" Scott says, sagging against the tree he was leaning on.

"If an alpha bites you it means they want you for their pack. It's kind of bad form to bite without permission though. Considering it could kill you… It's okay. You're past the dying part."

"But not past the hunter part. Or the being claimed by an alpha with no manners."

Allison laughs. Scott clearly doesn't appreciate this reaction.

"Come on," she tells him, waving him in her direction. "Let's get to your car. I'll take you home."

Scott groans again. "The car. What time is it?"

"Late," Allison answers.

"I totally broke curfew."

Allison laughs again. "Is that really what you're worried about right now?"

For the first time in hours, Scott perks a grin. "It's easier to worry about."

They tromp off. Allison cautions him to keep an ear out for the hunters as they travel. Walking, it takes them at least an hour to get back to the car, still parked outside the house.

"Are you okay to drive?" Allison asks of him.

Scott nods. Allison hands over his keys. He's about to get in, when Allison puts a hand on his arm. She has one last thing to say.

"I'll help you through this, Scott."

He just stares at her, like she has two heads… or is a werewolf, come to think of it. She imagines this is all a lot to be slammed with at once.

"Seriously," she says. "Everything I've done to this point has been to help you."

Scott brow furrows in thought, in understanding. "Wait. Does that mean everything that's happened between us has been fake?"

Allison purses her lips, looks down, feels guilty. She had been doing this for Scott's own good, but she supposes it would still sting.

She looks back up. "You're a really sweet guy, Scott. And I mean that in the least condescending way possible. It's just I have too much to deal with right now to even consider dating."

…

"So…?" Isaac pries on Saturday afternoon as they both work on homework. Mom had been working a nightshift when Scott got home way past curfew, the only reason Scott wasn't grounded. "How'd the date go?"

Scott sighs and sets down his pen. "It kinda bombed."

"Oh…" Isaac says, his secondhand excitement ebbing away. "What'd you do?"

"You do you assume it was my fault?"

"It's not?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, man."

Isaac shrugs and doesn't apologize.

Scott sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He needs to get it cut soon. "She wasn't as into me as it seemed."

"Sorry, man. That sucks," Isaac says.

Scott nods. He doesn't want to get into it more. For one, how could he even hope for Isaac to believe the truth – that Scott had been turned into a werewolf. Two, Scott himself is still hoping it was some sort of weird dream.

…

"So…" Lydia says, and it sounds all sorts of leading.

"So?" Allison repeats back to her. Allison's grateful that Lydia invited her over to do homework, considering Lydia's house was much more civilized than Allison's current abode. She had plenty of money left to her as one of the sole survivors of the Argent family, but there was a lot of paperwork and questions tied to all that, especially as she was still a minor.

"I saw you sneak out of my party early," Lydia says. "With Scott."

"I felt sick. He was taking me home."

"Sure," Lydia says in a perfectly sophisticated 'yeah, right' way.

Allison raised an eyebrow. "You think I'm lying?"

Lydia twirls a strand of hair and says, eyes staring off to the side in a mischievous way, "I think you're not telling the truth."

"Is there different between those two?"

"There's a nuance. Or the way you swing it." Lydia takes a moment to scrutinize Allison's face. "You weren't sick, but you didn't sneak off to fool around like I first thought. Something else is going on."

Again, Allison's affronted by the very 'peel back the wallpaper' type Lydia is. It should stop surprising her. In fact, Allison should start being careful around her. Lydia is too knowing for all the secrets Allison keeps.

Lydia might've taken Allison's silence as a sign of worry, or perhaps it's completely unprompted. "I'm not going to ask," Lydia says. Then with a shrugging roll of her shoulders, adds, "I'd be disappointed anyway. I wanted it to be sex."

Allison coughs out a laugh. "Are you trying to live vicariously through me?"

Lydia nods, tucking neatly folded hands under her chin. "My rebound is not going as well I planned."

…

The kitchen table is covered in overlapping maps – of Beacon Hills, of California, of the preserve – corners held down under coffee mugs and plates with bagel crumbs. News reports of the attacks that drew them into town were tacked up on one wall with pushpins. That might end up costing them their deposit. To an outsider, this might look like the coup of a serial killer. It was really Derek and Laura Hale's apartment.

Derek had made one comment about doing more research – one – and Laura provided. He had gone over what they had at least twenty times and there was nothing leading to more than the general vicinity of this town. He rubs at his tired eyes.

The door to the apartment opens and slams shut in only a precisely annoying way his sister could manage. She had gone out three hours ago for donuts; she just reappears now.

Derek leans back his chair onto its hind legs, and asks, "What took you so long?"

"I was following a hunch, little brother," Laura comments as she sets down a box of a half-dozen glazed donuts on the table in front of Derek in a way of peace offering. She then unfolds a packet of papers from her jacket pocket.

"What're those?" Derek asks through a mouthful.

"Gross," Laura says first, then, "The hunch."

She presses the papers down on the table between Derek and herself and smoothes them out.

"Look who's enrolled in Beacon Hills High?" she says, pointing to a name high on the list. It sticks out to Derek, just the shape and familiarity of the name: Allison Argent.

He swallows hard. "How did you get this?"

"Flirted with a teacher. Harrison or something." She waves this off. "Think this was our lady werewolf from the other night?"

"We didn't see the girl transform," Derek comments, glaring down at the paper.

"No, we just saw her rip an expertly shot crossbow bolt out of a tree trunk with one hand and run off with a confirmed werewolf. Total normal human stuff."

"Fine. Maybe it was her."

Laura is unimpressed with Derek's gruffness at her success. Derek can tell this. He needs to smooth out his actions and reactions into something more acceptable. Normal. Unaffected.

"Well..." she leads. "Makes me think that the guy werewolf might be another student at the school."

"That's a lot of kids."

"It's a lot less than the entire popular of this town."

Derek has to agree, begrudgingly.

"And anyway…" Laura snaps the enrollment papers up and refolds with a dramatic flair. "It's a lead."

Derek still glares at the spot the paper once was, and where the name was on it.

…

Allison attends lacrosse practice with Lydia again. Lydia is still trying to stalk out a proper rebound boyfriend. Allison goes with her because she needs to keep an eye on the new werewolf, because it's better than being alone, because… well, she likes having a friend.

Jackson plows into Scott unnecessarily hard on the field, especially for a practice scrimmage. Especially for a practice scrimmage where they're on the same team.

"He's a sore loser. He doesn't like not being the best," Lydia comments on her ex.

"He's still second best?" Allison says. Scott has popped back up on his feet with too much ease for a human taking such a pummeling.

Lydia scoffs like Allison doesn't get it. Allison _doesn't_ get it, but gets it enough.

Scott's barging down the field. He clips into Jackson with his shoulder. Only the fact that Jackson is already stumbling over a rut in the ground saves him from a full on body slam. Jackson hits the ground hard anyway. Unlike Scott, he doesn't immediately stand up.

The coach blows his whistle, but most of the team had already stopped playing regardless.

"What that hell are you two yahoos doing? You're supposed to be on the _same team_!" the coach hollers, all while going over to Jackson to make sure he is alright. Lydia is gnawing at her bottom lip as she watches from the sidelines.

One of Scott's friends tries to grab him by the arm to see what's wrong. Scott yanks away easily and rushes off the field. Slipping unnoticed away from the madness, Allison follows.

Into the boy's locker room she goes, which is gross but necessary. There's a crash the moment she enters. She's instantly thankful only Scott and she are in here. She only hears their two heart beats.

Another crashing noise – like metal, like the lockers. She looks up, and there Scott is perched on top of the nearest row. His eyes are yellow, his fangs extended, his claws out. His not fully transformed, but he's enough for Allison to know for a new turn like him, he's not in control.

He leaps at her, but she is too quick for him, prancing quick-footed out of the way. He lands on the floor in a messy scramble. He's back on his feet in barely any time, but it's enough time for Allison to move in front of the main door. She lets her claws extend.

It's a standoff then, for a precious half-minute. Eye contact is only a challenge to most animals, wolves included. Her eyes flaw their supernatural color. It's its own threat and warning. She's not some easily taken down human prey.

He charges her. She grabs him by the front of his lacrosse pads, claws tearing into it, but not into him. Using his momentum against him, she throws into the wall.

"Scott," she yells at him. "You need to calm down."

And there he is, back to human, blinking blearily at her from the floor where he had slid down the wall into a pile. "What happened?" he croaked.

Allison lifts a delicate but judging eyebrow. "You have an adrenaline-fueled macho showdown with Lydia's ex-boyfriend on the lacrosse field. Then you started to transform. Luckily, you were smart enough or intuitive enough to get yourself away from all those people."

Scott stands. Allison can see he's shaking – it's the aftershock. He examines the front of his gear where she had ripped it. He looks at her questioningly. She displays a single hand in claw form, rather blasé.

He stares at her clawed-out hand. "How do you control it?"

Allison lets the claws recede, staring at that more than Scott.

"Practice," she answers. "And an anchor."

"An anchor?"

"Something that grounds you to your personhood, to your control, to your…"

"Humanity?" Scott volunteers.

"You're not a human anymore, Scott. Not really." She hadn't intended it as cruel, but Scott looks like he's had something essential torn out from inside him. She almost expects to see him coughing up blood any minute. There's a want in her to say something comforting to redeem the situation, but she can't think of a single word. She's not a comforting person. Maybe she could've been; she thinks the desire to comfort is an indication even if she doesn't know how to comfort. But life had been too cold and brittle and sharp-edged to her for minor hurt feelings to matter in the grand scheme.

The locker room door bangs open. "Hey, Scott –"

It's that friend of his, who is tall and curly-haired. He glances between Scott and Allison.

"Everything alright?" he asks. "I was wondering where you ran off to."

Scott lies admirably then. "It's fine, Isaac. I just had to get to my inhaler."

The friend – Isaac – nods. He glances at Allison again before backing out of the room

Scott looks at her, and he has determination in his eyes. "Will you train me?"

Allison knows what she needs to ask, what she can't believe she overlooked. She folds her arms. "Yes, but I have a condition."

"Anything," Scott pleads.

"No lacrosse," Allison says. Scott starts to protest, but Allison cuts him off. "Until you learn to control it."

Scott's jaw tightens, but he nods.

…

He ditches out on practice the next day and goes with Allison out to the preserve. She talks at him for a while as they walk around the woods. She tells him about the pull of the moon, but how those big, primal emotions can trigger a transformation too. Emotions like anger, fear, and lust. She says it so nonchalantly, but he turns a little pink at the last one. He's pretty sure lust, at first, is what he was feeling the night of the party, with her. Fear, later, but definitely lust at first.

Later she sits on a stump of a tree and watches him try to transform in a clearing. Despite shaking with overt concentration, Scott doesn't grow an extra hair, let alone claws, fangs, and the lot.

"Focus!" she says, maybe for the sixth or seventh time.

Scott sags and lets out an exhausted sigh. "I don't think I'm getting anywhere. And why am I trying to turn into a wolf anyway? Isn't that the opposite of the point?"

Allison gets up off the stump. "No. It's one and the same. You're thinking of the wolf as something separate from you, but it's not." She presses a hand to Scott's chest, over his heart. "The wolf and the person are the same entity. If you try to compartmentalize them, you'll be a monster and a person, but never in control."

Scott gulps. He's not sure if it's what Allison is saying or Allison being so close to him – touching him – that makes him so nervous.

She drops her hand, takes half a pace back, and looks him in the face. "Spend the night thinking about it. We'll pick up again tomorrow after school."

…

Before 'tomorrow after school' comes Finstock.

"McCall!"

Scott's being summoned into Coach's office and there is no way he can pretend to not of heard him.

"You missed practice yesterday, McCall," Coach Finstock says, folding his arms over his chest and leaning back against his desk.

"Yeah," Scott says, he struggles for an excuse. He missed more than a few lacrosse practices last year and never received a personal callout from the coach about it. In fact, he didn't anyone short from Isaac noticed his absences.

"I was… feeling sick."

"Oh, you were feeling sick, were you? You know what real athletes do when they're _feeling sick_? Play through the pain!"

Scott starts at the sudden shout. He really should be use to Coach's outbursts by now. Just not so close to his face.

"I can't play you in the first line if you don't show up to practice, McCall."

"What?" Scott says, "First line?"

"You did a back flip over Greenburg. Of course first line…." Finstock seems to realize this is the catch for Scott. He goes on in a more placating and tempting tone. "You'll get to score. Win games. Break records. Get the girl. College scholarships… Think your stupid little teenage head about it. And get to practice."

Scott nods. "Yes, sir."

Later that day Scott won't meet up with Allison. He has too many stars in his eyes to consider werewolf-ism.

At the end of practice, he spots her waiting by the bleachers. She shakes her head at him and walks off.

* * *

Aki- I'm back! Anyway, here is chapter 2. I'm really liking writing Allison and I didn't realize I would until it happened. Which is good because she is a big part of this story.

I am also posting this on AO3 if you prefer reading fic on that site. I believe there's a link to my account on my profile (make sure you go to Aki's part of the profile, not Tenshi's). If there is not, my username/penname over there is ungoodpirate.


	3. (3)

Author's note: The same error that previously resulted in a few scenes being repeated in this chapter also resulted in a few lines being deleted at the end of the Derek and Laura scene. I have since fixed both these errors.

* * *

(3)

The bus driver had been attacked. Scott sees the police tape; the gathered members of the sheriff's department processing the scene; the school bus with its doors ripped open and off as if by a tornado; and the blood. He sees the blood.

It's a horrible surprise, and bile rises up in his throat. He had dreamed this. Or thought he had. Maybe he had done it.

The principal comes out to move the gawking, rubber-necking students along and into the school. Scott is amongst this crowd, but before he escapes into the school building he spots Stiles hidden under the shade of a tree on the far edge of the crime scene. He's outside the tape, but just. He's surveying the scene with a shrewd expression. No one notices him, but Scott has to wonder what Stiles is noticing that no one else is.

…

Someone is stalking her, and is not very good at it. She stops by the water fountain, turns around, pegs him with a look.

"You want something, Scott?" Allison asks.

His feet shuffle. He looks down at them. The bell rings. The halls empty. Still, Allison waits. Tardies are the least of her problems.

"Well?" she prompts, maybe gentler than before.

He finally looks up at her. "I think I did it."

"I'm going to need some clarification there."

Scott steps closer, lowers his voice although no one is around to hear. "I think I attacked the bus driver."

If he's expecting a big reaction, he doesn't receive one.

"And why do you think that?" Allison asks. "Did you wake up covered in blood and guts?"

"No," Scott mumbles, maybe embarrassed.

"Because if the wolf takes over, it doesn't exactly take care to clean up or rid itself of the evidence."

"But… look. I dreamed it. And I thought it was just a nightmare. But then I got to school..."

"It was the alpha." Allison had known this from the moment she had spotted the crime scene herself. The level of carnage, it couldn't have been a wild animal. "The alpha turned you. So you have a connection. It probably wanted you to see it."

"But why?" Scott asks, voice desperate. Perhaps if Allison had been forced to witness a murder in her sleep she would be that desperate too.

"Because an alpha only turns people because they want a pack. Because they want someone to help them." She tilts her head in thought. Scott is more than an accidental turning. He is more than a lucky victim that got way. The alpha targeted him. "Because," she says, "It wants you to help it achieve whatever it's planning to do."

And Allison can use Scott to find the alpha.

…

While Scott is grateful he is not a murder, yet, his talk with Allison didn't do much calm his nerves. He didn't want to kill. He didn't want to help out some crazy alpha werewolf with its plans. He didn't want to be a werewolf.

When he gets to class late, Isaac leans up from the desk behind Scott and whispers to him, "Scott, even I know that following the girl you went on a single failed date with around like a puppy is a bad move."

…

Scott usually spent his time at the vet's office doing grunt work, like cleaning out the cages. But this last week Deaton had assigned him to the filing cabinets. He had barely been near any of the animals. In fact, he hadn't been around animals except for the night Allison had brought the dog here. Come to think of it now, that kind of rings as suspicious.

He's on the floor behind the front counter, papers piled around him. The front door opens. He pops up – Dr. Deaton's the one in the back cleaning the cages today – to greet whoever came in. The first thing he notices is the pop of the uniform – a deputy's uniform. Scott's heart speeds up and his gut drops. This was it. He has been discovered. This he was sure of this. He murdered the bus driver. They found some evidence at the crime scene that proved it.

Deaton must've heard the door, because he was appeared next to Scott in an instance.

"Ah, Deputy Stilinski. How can I help you? Want to adopt a dog?"

Scott finally looks at the face behind the uniform. It's indeed the father of his once close friend. He's older than Scott remembers him. It had been, of course, a number of years since Scott had seen Deputy Stilinski up close, but that fails to negate the fact. People could look both old and alive, age not being an accessory that weighs them down. Deputy Stilinski looks weighed down.

Deputy Stilinski chuckles at Deaton's question, but it sounds forced and manufactured. A necessary laugh saved for small talk. "No, no. I just have a question for you. Police business."

Deaton tilts his head, curious and contemplating. "How could I ever help with police business?"

"The animal attack at the school…?"

No reaction shows on Deaton's face. Without looking at young employee, he says, "Scott, could you give the deputy and I some privacy for a moment."

"Yeah," Scott manages to wheeze out. He had been holding his breathe without knowing it. "Nice to see you, Mr. Stilinski," he says, edging away from the front counter. In a way, he's grateful to be away where he thought he was going to be arrested. But more, he wants to hear the conversation.

Then he remembers he can.

He pushes himself flat against the wall after he was out of sight in the back. He concentrates on his hearing and the voices come in more clearly than would if he eavesdropped from his point regularly.

"... how I can help?"

"Well, I have a few photos if you don't mind looking at them." There's a rustling of paper.

"Is this your case?" Deaton asked. "I was under the impression you were on… desk duty."

The deputy's voice is tinged with the unease of being found out. "The coroner only guessed it was a mountain lion. That's what the sheriff is going with, but just something about it… doesn't sit right with me. I thought I'd follow up with an animal expect."

"My expectise is fairly limited to family pets."

"But you'll make an educated guess?"

"I can try."

Deaton doesn't give any firm answers over the photographs.

"Thank you for trying," Deputy Stilinski says. Scott hears the reverberations of his footsteps as he leaves the building. Deaton starts back toward the hallway Scott is hiding. Scott can't move fast enough not to be caught.

"Listening in?" Deaton asks, bemused, thankfully.

"I just," Scott fumbles with his words. "I saw it at school and I wanted to know…" It's enough of a truth.

Deaton pats Scott on the shoulder. "You're not in trouble, Scott."

Oh, but how not true that was.

…

"Can we start that training again?" Scott asks sheepishly. The whole _thinking you killed someone_ thing really brought the situation into perspective.

He came out here after his shift at the clinic.

"Are you going to follow the rules?" Allison asks. She is standing on the top porch step, looking down at him. "No lacrosse until you have control?"

Scott sighs. It shouldn't matter that much, a sport, but it does. It's the first time he's been honestly very good at something, except maybe working for Deaton, but no one really gave you renown or acknowledgement for that. It's not that he needed to be prom king or something, but he would like to go through high school and leave at least of a little bit of an impression behind. And have a good time doing it.

"How long did it take you to control it?" Scott asks.

"There's not a comparison. I was born this way, not bitten," Allison says, like this not a revelation.

Scott actually feels his eyes widen. "You were born a werewolf."

She shrugs. "Practically my whole family was."

This, again, should be shocking. Werewolves, okay, Scott can fold it into his worldview. Crazy alphas trying to make packs? Got it. Entire families made of werewolves? It's odd to think about. But Scott doesn't get to revel in this oddness, not when the only thing he can see is the abject sadness in Allison's expression. It's not a cliché sadness. There's no tears or wet eyes, no trembling bottom lip, no whispered confessions. Rather, the sadness exists in the sudden rigidity of her posture, the pinch of her lips, and something hard behind her eyes.

"What happened to them?" Scott asks.

Allison comes down the porch steps and stands by Scott's side, looking up at the decrepit house.

"The fire. You know about that, right?"

A vague memory of a big news story from several years ago flashes through his mind. He's doesn't recall many details, just tragedy and a lot of people dead. He hadn't until this point connected this house or Allison to it.

He nods.

"They never solved it, the police, but I know who it was."

He doesn't need to ask. "Hunters."

"They supposedly have a _code_." Allison says the word _code_ like it's a curse. "But you can't trust them." She looks over at him with piercing eyes. "Scott, don't ever trust them."

Scott nods in agreement. His only interaction with hunter involved being shot with a crossbow, so he wasn't about to give them the benefit of the doubt.

"Is that why it smells like a death around here?" He winces after he says it. Not exactly a tactful question.

She closes her eyes and opens them again after a moment. It's more than a blink; it's more like a meditation.

"Did you hear about the half body they found in these woods?"

"Yeah."

"It was my mom. The other half of her they never found is buried here, under our traditions."

"That's…" Weird and creepy and morbid and even more "Sad."

Allison makes a noise that halfway a sob, but holds it back from becoming a full one. She crosses her arms like hugging herself. Scott wants to give her a hug, but he doesn't think she's appreciate it. Like she'd see it as a weakness. She not someone he's sure he's allowed to touch.

"Was it… hunters?" he asks.

"It was the alpha," she says sharply. "My mom came here to investigate. This was our old territory… when I didn't hear from her, I came to find her."

"Scott…" she's icy down to her core, through her voice, eyes glowing yellow. "I'm going to find and _kill_ the alpha."

Scott is almost terrified of her in that moment, but he's not. If she had directed that threat at him, he would have been quaking in his sneakers. In fact, the layer of emotions Scott feels in that moment terrifies him more than the actual ice of Allison.

…

They come up with a compromise. Allison is placating after the emotional upheaval of the day. Scott can play lacrosse for now, but if he has another close call on the field he better haul ass away from everyone so no one gets hurt, no matter what the consequences. If it causes them to lose a game, or makes the coach angry, or loses social standing, it doesn't matter.

And if Scott doesn't comply, Allison might just be there to haul him off the field herself. "Don't think I have any reservations." Allison tells him. "I'd rather make a fool out of the both of us than you kill or maim someone."

Scott's just relieved he no longer has to put his life on hold. Growing up as a werewolf, Allison had years to perfect control. It's impossible for Scott to avoid potentially emotionally-heightened situations for that long, lacrosse being just one of those situations.

Allison cautions him one more thing before they go: "Remember, even when you're not transformed, you are strong, faster, and more agile than any human could hope to be. Whether you think that's cheating or not is up to you. The important part is that you can still hurt someone. You have to pull back."

"Nothing about this is simple, is it?"

"Oh, Scott, you're just at the tip of the iceberg."

…

"Do you think that's him?" Laura asks. She pulls back her binoculars to look at Derek. They totally just stalked two teenagers into the woods. Well, technically they stalked Allison Argent into the woods and then this kid showed.

They stayed quite a distance back; werewolf hearing was too good to get anywhere near close. Nothing of the two teenagers' conversation was overheard.

"He could just be a friend," Derek says, squinting across the distance.

"A friend who happens to be the same age, height, and build as our suspected werewolf?" Laura prompts.

"I'm just considering all the options," Derek says, rather defensively. "Plus, if he's underage and he hasn't killed anyone, what's it matter anyway?"

For some reason, Laura is glaring at him. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing. Just following the code, Laura."

"No. There's the code, and then there's you hedging every move I've tried to make since we got here. We have a job to do, and we can't get it done when you won't follow a single lead."

Derek glares himself, but into the woods rather than at his sister. The boy has left. The Argent girl has disappeared into the skeleton of the Argent house. This is probably all they will get for this afternoon, but they'll probably stay out there for a little longer. Perhaps they'll scourge the rest of the woods for more clues. It's where the first attack had been, after all.

He's staring at the house. He's staring at the house even though nothing has changed, and the Argent girl hasn't come out, and even if she did, so what. He's staring at the house and Laura can see it. He needs to look away. Derek needs to look away, but he can't. He physically cannot.

Then Laura says it, those damning words. The worst part is that there in a whisper, and gentle.

The words are: "Is this about the fire?"

He blinks once, twice, says nothing. He feels the warmth of her hand on his arm, even thru the fabric of his sleeve. He's giving it all away.

"I know you're a _by the code_ kind of guy," Laura says, continuing in that whisper. "You only take down werewolves who've earned it. You take no joy in killing. It's admirable. It is."

She snorts. "I swear, most hunters are sociopaths who've just found a way to use it without becoming serial killers."

"Like Uncle Peter," Derek says, repeating an old inside joke.

He's not looking, but Derek imagines she smirks. "Like Uncle Peter."

The sun's at an odd angle. Not quite setting, but on it's way down, casting every extra orange.

Derek dares a glance at Laura. She's staring, now, at the house too.

"Not all hunters have the rules our family has."

"There were children in there." He sounds too remorseful to be innocent.

Laura's hand tightens on his arm. "I like to think," she says slowly, carefully, "That whoever did it, misguided as they were, had a good reason."

…

It's Saturday and they are in the woods and Scott is not allowed to leave until he transforms to a werewolf and then back human again. It wasn't going so well.

"You're probably the only new werewolf that actually has a problem turning into a werewolf," Allison says.

"Sorry," Scott shrugs.

Allison rubs at her temples. She needs to brainstorm. Scott has only turned two times that she knew of.

"Before you learn control, it's the moon and big emotions that cause you to transform," she says. "The time on the field, it was the aggression and anger. The first time, it was the moon. And that confusion and fear and…" She trails off, knowing something more.

She approaches Scott and stands up close behind him.

"What're you—?" Scott asks, nervous.

Allison just shushes him, breathing up against his ear. She presses up against his back. "Think about me," she whispers to him. "Naked."

Scott swallows. He can feel Allison too well against him. The heat of her, the press of her curves. He's having a reaction, all right, but not necessarily a werewolf-related one.

Allison steps back and peaks around to get a look at Scott's face.

"Really? Nothing."

"Not nothing," Scott chokes out.

She rolls her eyes and tries not to smirk. "But how is none of this triggering a change."

"I don't know… I just feel safe with you," Scott says. He's admitting more than he knows.

Allison laughs. It's relieved and surprised and a touch skeptic. "I'm your anchor."

Scott remembers her mentioning the term before, but it was something that had been swept away from the forefront of his mind by the immensity of everything else.

She continues: "I was the one who made you come back when you transformed in the locker room. I can't incite you into turning with lust or frustration because I… I lock you to humanity."

Scott clears his throat. "I thought you said we weren't human anymore?"

"We're a little human," she acquiesces. She raises a hand to touch his shoulder, but she stands an arms-length away. Now that there is actual meaning to the moment, she can't be so carelessly close to Scott.

"Why me?" she asks.

"I –," Scott starts. He struggles with his word. This discovery meant something, was admittance to something, that he wasn't fairly sure Allison didn't share in response. "I don't know. I didn't consciously choose it. But you're just… you're just kinda amazing."

Allison wants to kiss him then. Honestly just grab his face and kiss him, pouring out want and need and receiving it in return. She wants to kiss him and feel young, reckless, and swelled with infatuation.

She doesn't though. She drops her hand and has to look away from Scott looking at _her._

"What's your anchor?" she hears Scott ask, so quiet, tentative, and gentle. God, this kid didn't deserve this world. Allison squints her eyes shut and makes herself remember that this isn't a curse. She can almost hear her mother's voice in her head, chastising her for even thinking the notion.

"My family," Allison says. There's pinpricks of tears behind her eyelids. It was a reality she had grown and shaped herself into, but it still shook her to admit it to someone new.

Scott's anchor is Allison, meaning hope, a look to the future, daydreaming, puppy love. Allison's anchor is her family, rooted in the past, in ritual and remembrance, in pain and death, now gone. They weren't pieces meant to fit together, Scott and Allison. Allison would prefer that Scott never became a piece that fit with hers. He would be losing too much of that quality that made her want to kiss him in the first place.

Allison compromises with herself for a moment. She grabs Scott by the hand. He stares at the connection, then back to her face.

"I have an idea," she says. "Come with me." She leads him away. It edges from dusk into proper night dark as they travel. They end up at the school.

Scott glares at the bus crime scene through the chain-link fence that separates them from it. "What're we doing here?"

"Maybe there is something here for us," she answers vaguely. Allison grips the fence. It would be so easy to rip it apart right now, but she restraints herself. She can smell the dry blood from here. Scott shifts anxiously. He can probably smell it too, but maybe doesn't know why it's bothering it so much.

Allison links the toe of one shoe into a link in the fence, prepared to haul herself over. Scott grabs her arm.

"Wait, someone's already in there," he says. She peaks an ear and, yes, there is already someone in the bus. She had been too distracted by her own ambition.

Allison pulls back from the fence. "You're getting pretty good with the hearing."

"The hearing I can do. It's the smells I can't stand," Scott admits.

The two of them crowd behind the darkness of a tree and wait for however is in the bus to come out.

"Is that Stiles?" Allison asks, as a figure emerges clumsily from the bus steps.

Scott is looking at her rather than the perpetrator. "You know Stiles?"

Stiles, on the pavement now, tucks his hands into his hoodie pockets, glances around, then slinks off.

As he disappears, Allison re-approaches the fence. "Well, I guess we aren't the only ones investigating."

She pulls herself over the fence with a graceful ease that Scott fails to imitate, though he does stick the landing.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Scott says squeamishly.

"Good," Allison says.

They enter the bus. Blood is splattered everywhere.

"What do you remember?" Allison asks.

Scott traces claws marks tearing through a seat cushion with his fingernails. "Screams… pure aggression… red eyes."

"Alpha's eyes are red," Allison says blandly, adding this on as she realizes Scott wouldn't know this.

Scott feels like he's shifting under his own skin. It's not painful, per se, but not how the human body is supposed to change. He's felt it before, but never so slowly and wound-up. It's getting to him: the too vivid dream, the blood, the reality that someone died here.

"Allison," he croaks, and it's pathetic to his own ears. She's there in an instant, pressing a palm to his face, staring him in the eye.

"It's okay," she says. "Let it happen. I'm here. I won't let it get out of control."

So he does.

Scott looks down at his own claws for the first time. Tensing his jaw he can feel the fang-like teeth in his mouth. All those senses heightened even in his human form are more heighted now.

"Ah, there's my little werewolf."

Scott squints his eyes hard and feels the transformation revert him back human.

Allison observes him softly as he reopens his eyes, almost smiling. "See, it's not so scary once you get a handle on it."

"Well," Scott says, glancing around the interior of the bus. "This is scary enough."

…

While Allison insists it's not necessary, Scott accompanies back to the woods.

"You live here," he states, somewhat flummoxed, when it sits within sight. This is something that dawned on him slowly, but hadn't seen fit when to mention it.

She shrugs a shoulder, not affected.

"And you're alone." This was another horrible realization as he tallied up the deaths of all her family members.

"I can take care of myself," she says.

"But…," he looks down, then up. She looks like statue in the glow of the waning (?) moon. "You shouldn't have to. No one should."

Allison moves with werewolf speed, a half second later crushing her mouth against Scott's, clinging to the fabric of his jacket in tight fists. And she lets him kiss her back.


	4. (4)

**IMPORTANT NOTE**: I made an editing mistake in chapter 3 in which I repeated a scene. When fixing this I noticed that one of the repeated scenes had several lines cut from the end of that. So I suggest going back to see the now replaced lines at the end of the Derek and Laura scene.

* * *

(4)

It's easy to indulge. Scott makes her feel the warm of being wanted. With his puppy eyes, his firm but never harsh hands, the drag of his lips. It's a different variety of wanted than family, than pack, but not unpleasant. It's fresh and tangy like citrus. It's stings her cuts in her psyche, but it's not bad for her.

Scott's all enthusiasm. What Allison expects from your typical teenage boy. But he's more than just that, just typical. He's sweet, a little dopey, and he likes her in an uncomplicated way. She likes that he isn't all jagged edges.

Although she never thinks she'll be the PDA type (it's too revealing, too attention-grabbing, too exposed for the lifestyle of hiding, prowling, lurking she was raised to embrace), the next day in school she can't help the bare blush when she catches Scott's eyes from across the hall. Lydia catches on to it in a second.

Scott makes a beeline for them – for her. "Hey," he says when he gets to them, all breathy and hopeful and unsure what to say next. He noticeably grabs the straps of his book bag with hard fists.

Lydia rolls her eyes. "Finally," she says. She skirts away from them, presumably to give them some privacy in the crowded hallway. "See you at lunch," she says. "Both of you."

"Was that an offer or a command?" Scott asks.

"With Lydia, they're the same thing. She basically hijacked me into being her friend. Not that I mind."

"Do you mind?"

"Hm?"

"If I join you at lunch?"

Allison peers over his shoulder. "No… bring your friend too: Isaac."

Scott looks at her oddly. The majority of their conversations had been werewolf-related. Isaac hadn't come up in specifics. "How do you –?"

"I pay attention," Allison says quickly. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Scott's smiling in a way that makes her uneasy because it makes her weak-kneed. "I had to make sure you weren't killing anybody," she mutters in disgruntled defense.

"Right," he says, giving her excuse to her but still unutterably pleased.

"Shut up," she says, irritated but not at all irritated. She shoves lightly – playfully – at his shoulder.

…

Allison excuses herself to the girl's bathroom – possibly actually meeting up to confer with Lydia – before homeroom. That's when Isaac comes up to Scott.

"When did that happen?" he asks, looking at Scott as Scott's watching Allison disappear down the hall.

"I guess last night… but, slowly for a while," Scott says. He's still dazed by it himself.

"I guess that explains why you've been so… absent lately," Isaac says. He's good at hiding the hurt in his tone, but Scott hears it anyway.

"Sorry, I guess I've been a little distracted lately." He'll let Isaac interpret that for his own. It's not like he can just say 'sorry, I've been busy trying to deal with being a werewolf lately. Also that hot girl right there is also a werewolf. And then there's the werewolf who murdered the bus driver…'

"It's okay. I mean. I would be too, man," Isaac says.

"I'll make it up to you. And hey," Scott says, patting Isaac on the shoulder. "The good news is I got us invited to Lydia Martin's lunch table."

…

Lydia scoffs at something across the cafeteria. "I can't believe they're swooping in like that."

Danny's already rolling his eyes. "You're reading too much into it."

"They're usurping my position," Lydia says, glaring now. Allison looks over her shoulder in attempt to identify who exactly Lydia is staring at.

"You mean Erica and Boyd?" Scott's voice pipes tentatively up. Allison doesn't fault him; Lydia is deceptively intimidating.

Lydia scoffs again at the names, but says nothing more.

"You can't be the school's power couple when you aren't a couple," Danny says, like he's said it a million times already.

"Details," Lydia says dismissively. Then, "She wears too much eyeliner. And when's the last time Boyd's scored a goal?"

"We've only played two games this season," Danny says. "And he's defense."

"He's really good," Isaac says.

Lydia peaks an eyebrow at Isaac, who immediately shifts in his chair. "Still hasn't scored any goals," she says.

"You know, not letting the other team score is as equally important as scoring," Danny says. He's the one glaring now - at Lydia. She blissful ignores this.

"I think you're an important part of the team as an awesome goalie, Danny," Scott says, absolutely genuine.

"Thanks, Scott," Danny says, but distracted.

"You all care too much about lacrosse," Allison says and earns glares from all.

…

As they exit the cafeteria, Allison notices Stiles at a table in the corner by himself. He's surprisingly hard to notice around school for someone she had witnessed being as less-than-graceful in his own skin as him. He's got a thick book propped straight up on the table and his head is hidden behind it. He's curled over and in on himself as he reads. No one approaches him. He looks up at no one as they move around him.

Allison nudges Scott as they walk past. "What's his story?"

"Who? Stiles?"

Allison nods.

"Why do you care?" His answer is defensiveness hidden under curiosity.

"He was at the bus. I should care." It's a small truth, but mostly a lie. She hasn't told Scott about the interaction she had with Stiles in the woods her first weak in Beacon Hills.

"We used to be friends," Scott says. He rubs at his forehead. "Good friends."

"What happened?" Allison asks. She touches the back of his shoulder with her fingertips as if to stabilize him, or like this is the type of the pain she could pull out of him.

"He stopped," Scott says bluntly, looking down.

"Stopped being your friend?"

"Stopped being Stiles."

The heaviness of something so profound and large hangs in the air as they head with automatic footsteps to their lockers.

She doesn't prompt him. She lets him speak again, with clarification, at his own time.

"He was so funny," Scott says first. He's eyes aren't seeing what's in front of him, aren't seeing her. "Always had a sarcastic comment for everything. He was smart. And he cared, about me, about his dad." He pauses in walking and Allison pauses with him. "He was a _good_ friend." The emphasis adds a new meaning.

"Did you ever try to talk to him about what happened?" Allison asks when Scott indulges in silence for a little too long.

"Of course I tried to talk to him," Scott snaps, then immediately shrinks. "Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to…"

"I know. It's okay." Scott's hardly the scariest person she's dealt with. It's not like he was close to turning in that second-long anger either.

"I just don't know. Part of him stopping being Stiles was stopping being my friend, anyone's friend. And I know that he's had crap to deal with… Like his mom died, but it wasn't _then_. I just don't…" He raises and drops a shoulder wearily. "It's just hard to lose someone, I guess."

Scott surprises Allison again with his double meanings.

…

Considering that Allison lives in a burned out ruin, they spend a lot of time together in Scott's bedroom. With his mother's job at a hospital, her hours leave appropriate chunks of privacy after school.

They spend time between his job and lacrosse practice there, exploring each other. Forgetting the whole werewolf thing, Scott doesn't know how he got so lucky.

…

Derek awakes with ice spiking down his spine. Disoriented, he pushes up from his tangled sheets. Sweat has clogged the back of his shirt, making it cling. The digital clock burns 1:53 into the dark of the room.

He doesn't need a shower, but he plods quietly to the bathroom anyway. He strips and turns only one faucet.

He steps in. The cold shocks the breath out of him. He stands in it, lets it pound. The cold is so harsh it burns. Derek gets out when he stops being able to feel.

He returns to his room, gets dressed. Laura's bedroom door is cracked open. Derek hears her snoring. He sneaks out the front. There is something he needs to face without her.

…

Allison had made herself a place to live in one of the back rooms in one corner of the shamble of a house. A room that still had all four walls and the roof intact even if the glass of the windows has long been busted out. She doesn't remember whose room it had been. Where there were patches of wallpaper left distinguishable - not burned, not soot gray, not weather worn, not torn away - it was a just visible floral pattern.

She remembers enough to know that it's not her parents' room and not her own. Those she remembers and hasn't returned to. She hasn't visited the basement either.

She lies on foam mattress and pretends to sleep, for in pretending she might trick actual sleep into overcoming her. Not tonight.

She hears something - a crack of a stick. She pushes up, tilts her head, listens closer. Crunch of leaves in a pattern that can't be ascribed to the wind. Footsteps, then, but too ungraceful and heavy for the animals that roam this woods.

Allison gets up and presses against the wall next to the sill of the window. She arches her neck enough to see out without being seen herself.

There's a figure approaching – male, broad-shouldered, scent decidedly human. He's coming up roughly where there had once been a proper path leading to the house, but is now long overgrown.

He's being awfully casual to be a hunter, but who else would be here this time of night? He's carrying no weapon that Allison can see, but that doesn't mean that there is nothing hidden under the shape of his jacket. It doesn't mean there wasn't more of them lingering farther back, waiting, planning, hunting. Hunting her.

A heat creeps up her neck. It's fear, and not an actual sensation, but it has her half-transformed nonetheless.

The man, the possible hunter, is just standing on what was the front lawn. What's the plan? What should she do?

She wants her mom and her mom's barking orders so much right now.

Is this a trap, them trying to lure her out to fight or flight? Or were they trying to keep her in as they prepared something more devious? Light up the house a second time?

Another, more rational thought passes through Allison's head. Whoever it is, hunter or no, might not know she is in here. They could be here at the house for completely un-Allison-related reasons.

She waits crouched by the windowsill, watching the man, ears straining for signs of others, claws out. The man just stands. An eternity in an hour later, he turns and leaves.

Not until he's gone for over a half hour does she move. Her bones ache. It's decided before she even reaches her true height again — she can't sleep here tonight. Can't stay here.

She doesn't want to be alone.

…

It's three in the morning when Scott is jarred out sleep by a knock on his window. Confused, he climbs out of bed and stumbles across his bedroom. He pushes up his window.

"Allison?"

That's one way to shock him awake, a pretty girl climbing through his window in the middle of the night. She's in a tank top and yoga pants – what she must have gone to sleep in – and her hair is tangled. He picks a leaf out of a curl.

"Can I sleep here tonight?" Allison asks, bashful hidden under blasé confidence.

"My mom's –" Scott starts.

"Not like that," Allison interrupts. Scott hadn't meant like _that._ "Just –" She tucks a frazzled strand of hair behind an ear. She pushes up on her toes and pressed a closed kissed to the corner of his mouth. "Please," she says as she leans back.

It's the most vulnerable Scott has ever seen her. For the first time, she's asking him for something.

"Of course," he says, not hiding his worried tone. "Are you okay?"

Her jaw tenses. There's a miniscule shake of her head 'no.'

...

They curl into bed together. Allison presses her head to Scott's chest. She's on his right side, but can still hear his heartbeat. She hears his lungs and the turn of his still digesting stomach. These noises comfort by the representation of life they are. Comforting more so, because they're Scott's.

His arms are around her, embracing her. Does it make her weak to feel stronger here?

"Werewolves aren't meant to be alone," she mumbles into his t-shirt. Being alone means being an omega. Being omega means being last and least. Pack is strength. It's never being alone even in your loneliest. More than family, even if it is family, like hers had once been.

"People aren't meant to be alone, period," Scott says back.

She curls into him more, hiding her face like she could hide her shame. Allison can tell by the tensing of Scott's arms that he feels her shoulders beginning to shake.

"I miss her so much," she chokes out. Scott presses his lips to her hairline and Allison sobs. It's the first time she's let herself in years. Even at the shock of first discovery of her mother's death, she had kept a sort of dignity of silent tears as she dug the grave. Even as the pain of loss too familiar and complete loneliness - not so familiar - had stabbed her deep.

But before she was alone. There hadn't been time for sobbing when she couldn't risk the blurring of her vision while she had to watch over her own back.

But now, here, she's with Scott. He's watching over her. She can let go.

She lets go.

…

Scott wakes up the next morning to Allison next to him, faces inches apart. She blinks blearily at him through the morning light. It makes her appear more young and innocent than Scott has ever witnessed her before.

"Thanks for last night," she says. "I'm sorry I was such a mess."

"You don't have to apologize," Scott says back.

She strokes her fingertips down his cheek down to his lips. She presses a strong kiss where her fingers leave. It's a pretty intense kiss for the morning, considering Scott's already dealing with a morning boner.

She presses to him regardless, obviously feeling it but not commenting or reacting. He drinks her in.

"Scott you're going to be late if you – Oh my God!" squawks a voice. Scott shoots up in bed. He knows his mother's voice.

His mom stands in his half-open doorway, a hand raised over her eyes.

"Mom!" His voice cracks like he's still going through puberty.

She peaks through a gap in her fingers and sags in visible relief. She drops her hand. "Thank God, you're both clothed."

Scott just gaps at her. He's pretty sure if he tries speaking right now, his voice will go even higher. He glances at Allison, now sitting up on his bed, looking tired but otherwise un-flummoxed. Of course, his mom walking in on him making out with a girl probably isn't one of her worst nightmares.

Melissa regains her composure a lot faster than Scott. Arms crossed, she asks in a we'll-be-talking-about-this-later tone, "Who's your friend, Scott?"

"This is Allison," he manages to say.

"Good morning, Ms. McCall," Allison says smoothly, rubbing at her eyes.

"I was saying, Scott, that you're going to be late if you don't get your butt out of bed now. When did Allison get here?"

"Around three," Allison responds like it's nothing. Scott's not sure if he admires or fears her casual nature.

"Three?" Melissa presses a hand to her mouth. Scott can just see the calculating of groundings behind her eyes. "Well, Allison, I think you should call your parents to tell them where you are."

"My parents are dead," Allison says. Melissa almost flinches at this; her eyes certainly soften.

"Well, maybe call whoever you need to call," she suggests.

Allison nods and climbs off the bed past Scott. She picks up her backpack – that Scott hadn't noticed her bring it the night before but definitely recognizes it as hers from school – from the floor. Scott knows Allison doesn't have anyone else to call, but she's smart enough not to reveal that to Melissa.

"Bathroom?" she asks. Melissa points her down the hallway.

After Allison disappears, Melissa returns her attention to her son.

"Are her parents really dead or was that just some angsty, emo teenager thing she said because she hates them," Mom asks in a tone disguised enough if Allison had human hearing.

"No they're…, she's…" Even unfinished, Scott's sentence is confirmation enough.

"Are you being safe?" his mom asks next. Scott feels all blushy.

"That not's what happened," he says. "She showed up at my window, saying she didn't want to be alone."

"Your window? Nevermind."

Melissa looks conflicted, emotions battling it out on her features. On the one hand, her sixteen year old son just had a girl he's obviously intimate with spend the night and that has to be against the rules somewhere; but then this is an orphan girl who seems like she needs some support. Scott had already adopted a friend, after all, who sought out Scott's positive energy as emotional support.

She throws up her hands in exasperation and resignation. "I'll figure it out later," she says. "Now, you need to get ready for school."

Allison returns aptly timed – Scott thinks this is on purpose – dressed and hair brushed.

"Allison was it?" Melissa asks her. Allison nods. "You're invited to breakfast. Most important meal of the day." She says this last bit with odd intensity, like it is the one thing she is sure how to lecture on this morning.

Breakfast is an awkward ordeal. Mostly because they were all trying to behave like nothing awkward had occurred at all. Melissa drives them to school.

When they get out onto school property, and Melissa drives off, Allison laughs.

"This has never happened to me before," she says.

Scott quirks a grin, finding some humor in it. "Me neither."

Unsaid but understood is that neither of them had someone to be caught making out with before.

"After that, I think it's time to introduce you to my family," Allison says.

Scott's face squints up in confusion. "I thought your whole family was..." He hesitates over the words, trying to find a better way to phrase it. He gives up: "All dead."

Bitterly, Allison says, "Not all."

…

After school, they go to the hospital. It's not a scary thing to Scott usually, long used to it as his mother's workplace, but his pulse throbs rather hard now. He knows it can be nothing good.

Allison leads silently. Scott follows just as quiet down the florescent lit halls.

"Here," is all Allison says as they reach a room in a less bustling corner of the hospital. They enter, go past the privacy curtain, and there a woman sits limply in a wheelchair.

One half of her face is heavily scarred, but with old scars, faded to mostly skin tone. She had blonde hair hanging lank. Scott imagine she could have been quite pretty, despite the scars and all, if her eyes weren't so blank.

"Scott," Allison says, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed and placing a hand on the woman's arm with affection, "meet my aunt Kate."


	5. (5)

(5)

"She was more like my big sister than my aunt," Allison confides in Scott. Scott feels sick seeing this woman, Kate Argent. It's not the scars. It's Allison talking so passionately in her memories of her while Kate sits unseeing, unhearing, not understanding, in a catatonic state.

Allison steps back from her aunt. "They think they're heroes, hunters. But they're the real monsters. They are the ones that set fires, kill families, kill children, leave a person in a state like this, make orphans." She ducks down her head. If Scott could move, he'd wrap an arm around her.

"I've never done anything like that," she says to Scott.

"I believe you," Scott says. He's never doubted.

Allison turns to look at the door. "Let's go... I should come back to visit her properly sometime, but right now... let's just go."

…

Danny doesn't know how he ended up with Lydia crying on his shoulder. Actually he does know. It's all on Jackson. Who's been a dick to everyone lately, but it was he and Lydia who got the worse dose of it. They being the one's Jackson was usually less of a dick towards. This past summer his parents told him he was adopted and he's been in the throes of an existential crisis since. A crisis that somehow involved dumping his girlfriend and ditching his best friend. Jackson, lightly put, has issues.

When Lydia recovers from tears admirably well, once she's done crying them. It's almost like they never happened at all. She calms down, stops crying, pulls away from Danny without a word, and goes into her bathroom. She returns ten minutes later fresh-faced, like she never even heard of the word _crying._

"Let's do something," Lydia announces. "Like watch a movie."

Danny doesn't roll his eyes at her sudden change in behavior. Lydia does enough that makes him want to roll his eyes that he has to reserve this gesture for the more needed moments. "Is there anything good in theaters?"

Lydia dares roll her eyes at _him_. "We're not going to a movie theater together. We're not dating. Let's watch a movie here."

Danny hadn't been aware that going to the movie theater had constituted dating, but the more he thought on it… two teenagers going to a movie together did sound suspiciously like dating on paper.

Lydia slips into a pair of heels.

Danny eyes her oddly. "Dressing up for a movie night in?"

"We have to go to the video store," she replies in a 'duh' tone, now inspecting her hair in the mirror.

"You have a computer right there," Danny says, pointing at her desk. "We can just stream something."

"I'm not getting pulled into your criminal ways, Danny," Lydia says loudly.

"There are sites where you can do it legally," Danny responds, crossing his arms. Now that he used such sites.

She starts out her bedroom door, not a word to him, just expecting him to follow. He's sorely tempted to remind her he is not Jackson and he is not sleeping with her, and thus he isn't compelled to give in to her every whim. Then he resigns himself that he doesn't indeed have anything better to do with his night, both single and dumped to the depths of outcast during Jackson's existential crisis.

While Danny had generally been more well-liked than Jackson, Jackson was the captain of the lacrosse team and most of the other players preferred to try and get in his good favor. Like they thought that Jackson's good-favor would make them more talented or more liked in Coach's eyes.

Danny drives. Lydia likes to be chauffeured around.

When they pull into the parking lot, Lydia announces, "I want _The Notebook_."

"I'm not watching _The Notebook_ with you," Danny tells her.

They have a stare down.

Then there's a crash. Lydia screams.

…

Allison grabs Scott by his sleeve within the first minute he enters the school. She drags him into an abandoned classroom.

"There's been another attack," Allison hisses.

Scott sucks in a breath. "Who?" he asks.

"A clerk at the video store."

"What's the connection?" Scott asks. "Shouldn't there be a connection?"

Allison raises and drops her shoulders, resignedly lost. "One more thing," she says. "Danny and Lydia were there."

"Are they okay?" Scott asks.

"They were in a parking lot, but they were witnesses."

"… how do you know all this?" Scott asks.

"I told you before, Scott," Allison states as she starts out the classroom door, throwing her air over her shoulder. "I pay attention."

…

Lunch is shared just between Scott, Allison, and Isaac, both Danny and Lydia absent from school that day. Danny later showed up for lacrosse practice.

"My parents insisted I stay home to make sure I was _okay_, but I told them I wasn't missing practice, " Danny explains to an inquisitive Scott. "I didn't even see anything. I mean, I heard the crash, but I had been looking in the opposite direction and it moved by so fast, y'know?"

"It?" asks Scott.

"The mountain lion," Danny says. "That's what they say is attacking people, right?"

"Right," Scott agrees.

"Lydia doesn't seem to be doing so well. I talked to her on the phone today. But then again, see saw it."

"The mountain lion?" Scott asks.

"Um, yeah. The mountain lion."

Scott knows he needs to pass this intel along to Allison, but he finds her already standing on the sideline of the field. She had been listening in. She gives Scott a nod and mouths 'later'.

…

There's a solemn quietness about Lydia Martin's house, like entry to the terminally ill's home. Lydia's mother leads Scott and Allison upstairs, although Allison knows the way.

"Lydia, Allison came to see you. And –" She looks at Scott pointedly.

"Scott," he tells her.

"Scott," Lydia's mother says unnecessarily. Lydia – laying crossway across her bed – grunts in response. Lydia's mother leaves the teenagers to their privacy.

Scott hangs back as Allison sits next to Lydia on the bed. She strokes at Lydia's hair.

"Hey, Lydia," she says with the softest affection.

Lydia rolls over from her front to back, squinting up at her companion.

"Allison!... you're my favorite."

Allison leans over and plucks an orange pill bottle from the bedside table. She glances over her shoulder to Scott. "She's stoned."

She turns her attention back to Lydia. "How're you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Lydia says unconvincingly, despite how drugged she is.

"Lydia," Scott says, taking a step forward, "Can you tell us what you saw at the video store?"

She laughs, and it could be a sob. "A mountain lion. I saw a mountain lion. What else would it have been? That's what the police said is attacking everyone." She giggles at the end. It's feeble.

"What do you say it is?" Scott asks.

Lydia sits up in bed, her hair untamed. "A mountain lion," she repeats.

Scott sits down on her other side of her than Allison. Allison takes hold of Lydia's hand.

"Lydia, please," Scott begs.

Lydia raises her head to look at the ceiling rather than either of her companions. "It's crazy," she whispers desperately.

"We'll believe you," Allison tells her. "No matter what you say."

Lydia lowers her head, squeezes her eyes shut tight, a tear leaks out. "It was big," she says, voice scratching. "It had red eyes." Allison and Scott catch eyes over each other Lydia's ducked head. This only confirms something they had strongly suspected anyway.

Lydia shudders. She has one last thing to say. "It was a monster."

They stay with Lydia until she calms down, Allison holding the girl against her shoulder. Then they descend back downstairs. Lydia's mother is waiting in the living room, standing as the two teens reappear.

"How is she?" Lydia's mother asks, trying to make it casual, but the demand is heard nonetheless.

"She asleep now," Allison answers.

"It's so nice of you to come visit," Lydia's mother says.

"Are we the first people to visit Lydia?" Scott asks Lydia's mother conversationally.

"Another boy came by earlier," Lydia's mother says, stirring something in a mug. "He had a strange name… Stiles."

Allison and Scott glance at each other with matching curious and befuddled expressions.

"I didn't realize Stiles and Lydia were friends," Allison says lightly, but digging.

"It's the first time I've met him" Lydia's mother says, "But Lydia's had such a lack of friends lately…"

"We hope she feels better soon," Scott volunteers.

Lydia's mother nods distractedly. Allison lets Scott and herself out.

…

"Stiles again," Allison says at the start down the sidewalk outside Lydia's house.

"This may sound crazy," Scott says, "But do you think…_ Stiles_ is the alpha?"

Allison gives him a sideways glare. "That is crazy."

"How can we know?" Scott says.

"Does he seem like a multi- murder to you? You were the one who used to be his friend?" Allison quickly turns it around on Scott. She's still keeping her personal knowledge of Stiles private. It's not that she doesn't trust Scott. And really, it wasn't much to trust him with. But there was power is collecting pieces of knowledge that others didn't have.

"I told you it sounded crazy," Scott says. "But he was at Lydia's. He was at the bus. Hey, I saw him lurking around the bus crime scene that morning. That's… that's returning to the scene of the crime! That's a thing."

"We're going to all those _scenes_ too, Scott," Allison says. Scott snaps his mouth shut at the solidness of that rebuttal. "I think he has his own motives, but I don't think he's the alpha," Allison continues to say.

"But what motives?" Scott asks, wide-eyed.

Not only does Allison not know, she does not have the faintest inkling of a possibility either. The both of them feel heavy under the unknowingness of Stiles' actions.

"Is that your phone?" Allison asks, a few paces later.

Scott digs his cell out of his pocket, glances at the caller id, and swears. "I'm supposed to be at work half an hour ago."

"Better run fast."

…

A deputy's car sits outside the Dr. Deaton's office when Scott finally arrives, now forty-five minutes late to work. Scott pushes open the front door quietly. It's Deputy Stilinski again. Scott catches the end of a phrase: "…if you could look at it?"

"I've told you before that I'm not an expert in wild animals."

Quiet or not, he gains the attention of Dr. Deaton, who is behind the counter, as soon as he enters.

Scott grimaces. "Sorry I'm late."

"You should put school first," Deaton says, giving Scott an excuse for him, but a very false one. "If you could get to feeding the animals…"

"Right away," Scott says, ducking past the Deputy as he makes his way to the back. Scott hesitates once out of sight. He's not sure if Deaton would be so forgiving of Scott listening in a second time, especially after being late.

Scott gets to work – going back to the kennel – and its work he's content in. There is something both comforting and fulfilling in working with animals.

He's hauling a new bag of dog food from the supply closet to the kennel when he hears it: a loud, nasty snarl coming from the examination room. The door is shut, which is odd. It's usually left ajar for easy comings and goings. Scott puts the bag on the floor and steps closer to the examination room door. The animal makes another noise. Scott tests the door knob. The room is locked. Even odder.

Scott presses his ear to the door. It's unnecessary to hear the snarling, but he wants to know more. He can distinguish the beast's heartbeat going flutter-fast.

"Angry rottweiler," Deaton's voice chimes in, and Scott jumps. He hadn't heard the man coming, so focused on whatever was beyond that door. "I'm keeping him isolated because I don't want him upsetting the other animals. Or hurting any curious someones," he adds with a pointed but not angry look at Scott.

"Oh," Scott says. Something about the situation doesn't sit right with him, but he isn't sure what. He spies that Deaton has a manila envelope in hand, presumably from Deputy Stilinski.

"Is that picture of the –," Scott cuts himself from accidently saying _alpha_. "The thing from the attack the other night?"

Deaton's lips tighten momentary before he speaks. "Deputy Stilinski believes I might have some knowledge about the animal."

Scott's brow furrows. He remembers both Danny and Lydia, insistent that the police had assured them that attack was the work of a mountain lion. Yet here was Stiles' dad, investigating further. "I thought the police said it was a mountain lion?"

"The deputy is not, ah, satisfied with the official story of the mountain lion. He's been looking into it on his off hours."

Scott nods. So what Deputy Stilinski was doing was not an officially sanctioned investigation. Oh, how alike father and son were.

Scott looks at the envelope like with the hope that some new power would arise in him and he could see through it to the evidence inside. "What do you think it is?" he asks Deaton.

"As I told Deputy Stilinski, I am no expert in wild animals." The examination room growls loudly. Deaton glances heavily at the door like he's afraid it will be broken down, then back, calm-faced, to Scott.

"But what do you _think_ it is?" Scott insists. Everyone had an opinion on this news. Even though the attacks looked so clearly like the work of some wild animal, talk shows and news editorials festered about with rumors of twisted serial killers for ratings. Come to think of it, it's probably why the deputy's department was so insistent on the mountain lion story.

"I don't think you and I should be concerning ourselves with it," Deaton says this both so sad and so intense, that Scott is too gob smacked to say more.

Later Deaton leaves Scott with the task of locking up. Scott hadn't been originally slated to do closing that night, but he felt he needs to make up for being late, so he stays late with no complaint. As he's turning off the lights one-by-one, he sees now that the examination door is now unlocked and sitting just ajar. He pushes it fully open. The room is empty.

He should've noticed when the "rottwieller" had stopped making noise. When was it? When Deaton left? Before sometime? And where was it taken? He had been so preoccupied with his work and with replaying the exact intonation of Deaton's _I don't think you and I should be concerning ourselves with it. _He hadn't noticed when the noise had stopped.

Scott turns off the light. He gathers his things from under the front counter where he had stowed his backpack. His phone again, when he checks it, has a series of missed calls, this time from his mother's cell. Shit, parent-teachers conferences had been tonight, and his grades had been suffering so much since all this werewolf stuff he was supposed to accompany his mom.

He calls his mother's number. She picks up halfway through the second ring.

"Mom, I'm so sorry! I got to work late, so I volunteered to stay late. I completely forgot –,"

"Oh, god, Scott." His mother sounds anxious and on the edge of more vulnerable emotions. "I was so mad at you and so worried, but now I'm kind of glad you weren't here."

"What?"

"There was…," she seems to pause and gulp down her own words. "When we were all coming out of the school afterwards. The mountain lion. It was in the parking lot."

"The mountain lion!"

His mom misinterprets Scott's shock and surprise. "Everyone's okay. No one got hurt, well, at the school. Deputy Stilinski got a shot at it, but missed. That scared it off though. But it could be somewhere in town right now. You're still at Deaton's?"

"Yeah?" Scott said, his hand hovering over the knob of the front door. He had an itch to find Allison and discuss this new development.

"Stay there. I'll come pick you up. I don't want you walking home."

Scott drops his hand. He can't abandon his mom now, with the worried edge to her tone, when he already skipped out on her tonight.

So he tells her, "Okay. I'll be here." And he is there, when she arrives.

…

Allison is sitting at the top of the bleachers. Scott goes to her directly after lacrosse practice rather than to the locker room. He wants to talk to her about the mountain lion, but there's something else…

"Everything okay?" he asks. "Was there another attack?"

She shakes her head no. They are together in quietness for a moment.

"It was my birthday yesterday," she says quietly.

"I didn't know," Scott says. They were sort of a couple. He feels he should have done something for her birthday.

"I forgot myself," she says. She'd distant as she says this. Scott wonders if she's missing her mom more than usual in this moment.

"Well," he says with feeble cheer, "Happy sweet sixteen."

"Seventeen," she corrects. This used to bother her, now it's just a detail. "We moved around a lot, my mom and me. It put me behind a year."

"Happy sweet seventeen, then," Scott says.

Allison allows a grin. It's at least half-genuine.

"We should celebrate," Scott says with a sudden earnestness.

"Why –"

"Because you're here. You were born, and you're here. That's what birthdays are all about. So let's call Lydia, Danny, and Isaac and go do something fun."

Despite her moroseness, Allison is influenced by Scott's infectious enthusiasm. "Like what?" she asks.

"I don't know. Bowling."

Allison quirks her head to the side. "Do you bowl?"

"No," Scott says, firmly but with none of the enthusiasm absent.

"Okay. Let's do it. Let's go bowling. I need a distraction, anyway, from…" She pinches her lips tight for a second. "I just need a distraction."

So they do that. Lydia, Danny, and Isaac meet them at the bowling alley. Lydia is surprisingly good. (She has bounced since the witness of the alpha. Whether she convinced herself it was just a mountain lion or she was good at performing being okay was anyone's guess.) Allison and Scott have their bowling abilities enhanced by their werewolf reflexes. Isaac and Danny are not bad once they get warmed up, even if it is either one of them in last place every game.

It's not really about the competition, though. They are all there for Allison. Hanging out, goofing off, ordering and consuming too much soda and greasy bowling alley food. The group sings her happy birthday embarrassingly loud over a plate of cheese fries. Untainted, for these moments, Allison is happy.

…

"Your girlfriend isn't half bad," Isaac tells Scott as they share a ride home. Allison was getting a ride with Lydia, something he learned was Lydia dropping Allison off outside a house Allison had told Lydia was hers. She then would make her own way back to the preserve. It didn't feel safe, with a murderous alpha and werewolf hunters running about town, but Allison was more equipped to handle those. At least, more than Scott anyway.

"She's awesome," Scott corrects his friend.

"… I just never saw her be _fun_ until now," Isaac explains with a little shrug. "Granted, my experiences have been limited to lunchtime, but… I don't think I've seen her smile until tonight."

"She's going through a lot of stuff," Scott says defensively.

"I'm not trying to judge," says Isaac. "I mean, I think I was jealous before, because you were spending all your time with her, but I get it. She's cool."

"I still promise to make up for that," Scott says.

"I know, Scott. I know," Isaac says, but stares at the road.

…

Allison stretches her arms over her head, cracking her back, as she enters the front of the old Argent house. She feels light on her feet, light in her head, lighter in her being than she has been for a long while. She knows, intellectually, that is a fleeting feeling. She's still an orphan, there is still a crazy alpha running about, there are still hunters in town, but she is going to let herself ride the wave as long as it goes.

It doesn't go much further.

"Nice digs," a voice echoes inside the house.

Allison jerks, body twisting to seek out the noise – the intruder. A twenty-some young woman is perched on the arm of the old couch in the once living room. She has a hand gun in one hand, arm loose at her side. Allison immediately coils tense.

"Ah, ah," the woman says, raising the gun lazily in Allison's direction. "No wolfing out. Stay completely teenage girl and things won't have to get messy."

Allison claws are out. He can feel her fangs in her mouth. Like a dancer, her feet move instinctively in a position to leap.

The woman's aim gets more precise as she places her two feet to the floor as well, sliding off the edge of the couch. "Do you really think you're faster than a bullet? Wolfsbane laced, of course. Now _turn back_. I just want to talk."

"How can I believe you?" Allison hisses.

The woman rolls her eyes. "I could have shot you dead the moment you walked in the door, you were so distracted."Allison doesn't move a muscle. The woman sighs. "Seriously, I just want to have a little girl chat. Put away the claws."

"Put away the gun," Allison dares back.

"Listen to my heart," the woman says. Allison actually follows this command, harrowing in her hearing to the woman and her own lifeblood beating through her veins.

"I just want to talk," the woman says slowly and clearly. "I won't attack you if you don't attack me. Capiche?"

The woman's heartbeat had been steady. Allison steps out of her 'ready-to-attack' position. The woman lowers her gun away from Allison. Allison feels her claws and fangs receding. The woman tucks the gun into the back of her jeans. Had she ever even turned the safety off? Allison didn't know enough about guns to tell. Standing there in her school clothes and her face still hurting from all the laughter earlier left her feeling naked.

"Good girl," the woman said, and Allison felt like wolfing out and attacking her just for the patronizing tone.

"There was no way we could do this without all this dramatic tension," the woman says. "I mean, an Argent and a Hale? Lot of history there."

Allison grits her teeth, clenches both her fists hard. It's hard not to transform when being provoked. Allison believes this is the closest she's ever been to a Hale, and she's not feeling forgiving.

"But I don't live in the past, Allison. I live in the present."

Allison shivers when the woman speaks her name. She hates that this woman knows hers when Allison doesn't know the woman's.

The woman examines the blackened shape of grandfather clock along one wall. There was nothing so rude as to turn her back on Allison like Allison wasn't a real threat.

"And in the present," the woman continues, "there's a werewolf killing people in Beacon Hills."

"It's not me," Allison says coldly.

The woman looks over her shoulder. "Oh, honey, I know it's not you. If it was you, you'd be dead." She said that last part with too much cheer.

"Then what do you want, bitch?" Allison grits out.

The woman laughs but it's dangerous. She moves away from the clock and towards Allison, closer than before. Allison has to force herself not to take a step back. No fear. She would never show a hunter her fear.

The woman points between the two of them. "I don't think I'm the bitch here, literally speaking… but whatever. I want to know what you know about the alpha."

"What?" It shouldn't be a surprise, but Allison had a hard time contemplating anything more than her own immediate survival at the moment.

"The alpha that's the killing people. Who is it?"

"How would I know?" Allison challenges.

The woman steps closer. "Don't you all sense each other? _Smell_ each other?"

Allison has to look away, look down even if ill-advised to not keep her enemy in eyeshot at all times. "I don't know."

"Excuse me?"

Allison glares up at the woman. "I don't know," she repeats darkly.

The woman scoffs as she steps back. "So you're useless to me."

It shouldn't taste like blood in Allison's mouth, being called _useless_.

The woman eases herself back against the arm of the couch, observing Allison carefully. "So here's what we're going to do," she says. "You're going to stay out of my way as I hunt the alpha. It's my life's work after all. You're going to keep yourself in line. You're going to keep you're freshly turned little boyfriend in line. Yes, I know about him. Just like I know who's buried in your front lawn. Think I don't know a werewolf grave when I see it."

Maybe Allison opened her mouth to protest. Maybe she flinched when the woman referenced Scott and her late mother. For this woman, with her silky words and her continuous smirk, snapped next: "And you know why you're going to do it? Because I'm trained to do this. And you're just a little girl without a pack."

The woman pushes off the couch and heads toward the front door, brushing past Allison on the way out, like Allison nothing.

…

Derek glares at the beer bottle on the coffee table. It's his and half empty. He glares and he waits. He jerks at the sound of the key scratching in the front lock. He's on his feet by the time the door opens and Laura walks through.

"Where have you been?" he demands.

Laura takes her time before answering. She sheds her jacket and hangs it up on a peg by the door. She removes a gun from her person – Derek feels the widening of his eyes – and puts it down on the counter.

"Been following a lead," Laura says.

"What lead?"

She pegs her brother with a mildly condescending look. "Our only lead. Allison Argent."

Derek found himself unable to utter a word even though there were a million struggling between his brain and his mouth. His eyes fall to Laura's gun.

"I didn't kill her," Laura tells him. "I didn't even fire a shot. I just talked to her."

"Talked?" Derek says, skeptical-ness full in his tone.

"Yes, talked, not unlike we're doing now."

Derek glowers. Laura tisks and is unaffected by her brother's antics.

"She didn't know much. She doesn't know who the alpha is. But it's surprising what you do learn when you state something you suspect as fact and see how a person reacts. Got to see her werewolf eyes too. Yellow."

Derek's not done glowering.

"You're welcome," Laura adds sarcastically.

"Why didn't you tell me you were planning on doing this?" Derek asks with a lower voice.

"Because of this!" Laura snaps. She bangs her hand down on the table. The beer bottle clatters, but remains upright. "Two more people have been slaughtered since we've come to town, don't you understand that?"

"I do," Derek says just above a whisper.

She tilts her head and stares at him hard. "Do you?... Because you are somewhere else stuck in your head and I don't see it. I don't see you caring."

"I care," Derek spits back.

Laura blinks several times, her eyes looking suspiciously watery. "So do I," she says back. And there's too much depth there for Derek to dream digging in.


	6. (6)

(6)

Allison grabs his hand during study hall; Scott feels the tickle and press of a ballpoint on it.

"Memorize it. Don't just put it in your phone," she dictates at him. Scott stares at his palm and the ten digits marked on it.

"You're finally giving me your phone number?" he asks, bemused.

"I just got a phone," she responds. "One of the ones where you buy the minutes as you go." She curls her fingers around his, drawing his fist shut. "Memorize it," she says again with emphasis. "You need to be able to call me from anywhere, even if you don't have your cell. Howling isn't always an option."

Scott smirks in repressed laughter, then asks in response to Allison's stoic expression. "You serious about the howling?"

"How do you think wolves communicate?... seriously, Scott."

…

Scott's crouched behind a car that isn't his, the alarms blaring down the row.

He fumbles with his cell phone, dialing the number still smudged but faint on his hand. He hears a ringtone amongst the car alarms. Not his, but very close to him. Then an irritated sigh as the ringtone cuts off. Scott looks up over his shoulder, over the trunk of the car that is his personal barricade, and there stands Allison - new cell in hand.

"The first thing you're gonna do if your attacked by the alpha is call me?" she asks. Scott can't tell if she offended or flattered.

Scott's heartbeat starts to return to a healthier pace. "It was you," he gasps.

Allison rolls her eyes in a way that answer, 'Yes, of course, come on, Scott.'

Scott presses up from the asphalt, questioning in his eyes.

"I said I'd train you. I taught you control. Now I'm teaching you defense, to fight if necessary... The car alarm thing was clever, by the way. But remember that if you make it that the alpha can't hear you, you can't hear the alpha."

"I'm fine with just training to control it. I don't need defense," Scott says, still off balance mentally. He thought he was being attacked by the alpha and it was just Allison

'Fighting' is what he is really thinking. He really doesn't need to learn werewolf fighting.

Scott glances over his shoulder. Surely someone soon will hear all these alarms and come to investigate. Maybe he can still retrieve the groceries from wherever they fell from his hands.

To say that the expression Allison bore when Scott returned his attention to her was unpleased would have not been an understatement, it would have been more of an opposite, she was so perturbed. Scott didn't even care to remind himself that opposites didn't work like that.

"We have a murdering alpha who wants you for pack and a couple of hunters that will kill you if you make one wrong move, and you don't want to learn defense?"

He shifts on his feet. When she puts is that way...

But he can't help but feel repulsion when he thinks of the werewolf inside him. He remembers so vivid how he almost snapped on the lacrosse field. Now that he has the power not to rip someone apart, he is pretty sure he wants to keep it that way. Allison's still lecturing him.

"... Controlling the wolf is not just being able to maintain your human form, but to be the wolf and still make rationale decisions."

"Okay, and that rationale decision is not to fight."

Allison blinks heavily. She seems to now realize the ruckus of noise, and how this isn't exactly going to be a private place for long.

"We should talk about this somewhere else," she says. She has the decency to help collect Scott's spilled groceries before they go.

...

Allison bursts the moment the two of them are in the privacy of Scott's bedroom. "Your nonviolence is a commendable stance, but it's not realistic when someone is out to kill you. We can't have a hunger strike against the alpha's murders. We can't start a petition to get the hunters to change their policies. I'm not saying go out looking for a fight, but this isn't something you can avoid."

Scott rubs a hand through his hair, agitated down to his bones. It's not that Allison isn't making sense; Allison is making a whole lot of sense. But Scott's not Spider-Man. He doesn't feel a call of responsibility with his newfound abilities. He just wants his simple life: being a star lacrosse player, a decent student, a good son, and Allison's boyfriend. He'd even give up the lacrosse star part if doing so would get rid of the werewolf part.

Plus, he's scared. And not just of the alpha or the hunters.

He plops down in a seat on his bed. He looks up at Allison ruefully. "Why does it have to be our fight?" he asks, although he already knows. He just wants an out.

Allison's expression tightens. "You know why it's my fight. And you can try to avoid this all if you want, but it will catch up to you eventually. The alpha or hunters, the two in town or others." She sits down next to him, grips his hand, says softer, "I just want you to be safe."

Scott tucks his forehead next to hers. And he admits it, in his own whispered words, the fear he has of himself.

Allison listens, grips his hands tight, and when it's over, tells him, "Just because you're a predator doesn't mean you have to be a killer."

Scott has to blink back surprised tears, the sudden truth of that cutting deep, searing, but leaving clean, after his admittance. It's a revelation, swiftly understood though only with time will it be absorbed into him as a truth.

He doesn't have to be one or the other: Scott or werewolf; human or monster. It's what Allison has been trying to tell him all along. He is both.

…

Allison doesn't tell Scott about being 'approached' by one of their resident hunters. What's there to tell? Okay, there's a lot to tell, but no one got hurt, and the stakes things are at, the female hunter might as well been wishing Allison a belated birthday. Plus, what would Scott be able to do about it?

In a way, putting a face, an attitude, a mission to the hunters soothes Allison. She doesn't trust them by a long shot and she stills believes the guilt of them in the fire that murdered her family. She knows their Hales, though they would have been awfully young when the fire happened, maybe teenagers themselves. Their family was guilty if not just the two in town.

The fear of the unknown has assuaged. Allison knows that hunters are here; the hunters know she is here. It is mutually understood. And she's not dead yet. No attempt has been made on her life. While Allison wants her own revenge on the alpha, if the hunters manage to take it out first, it won't be the worse crime they've committed.

But while Allison might be willing to let that risk fall on herself, she can't let it fall on Scott. Inevitably he has been dragged into this whether he likes it or not. He is a werewolf, but she refuses to let the fact he is a werewolf be the death of him.

…

Allison positions Scott an arm's length away and then steps a few paces back. The sunlight makes the kicked up dust of every footstep more visible in the living room of the old Argent house. Outside would be too exposed on such a beautiful Sunday, where regular townies might be tempted to visit the reservation for recreation.

"Okay," she says, shifting into prepared stance. "I want you to attack me."

Scott just stands in spot uneasily. "I can't - I can't attack you."

She sighs, worried this is a relapse back into his hesitant mentally that they really can't risk under the current circumstances.

"Why can't you attack?" Allison asks, impatiently patient. "I thought that we agreed you learning to fight was necessary."

"I don't want to attack _you_," Scott clarifies.

She peaks an eyebrow. "Because I'm a girl?" she dares.

"No, because it's you, Allison, my anchor. I don't think I could wolf out on you. And if I did, I don't think I could actually, honestly get myself to attack you."

Allison has to concede to his valid points, and does so with a little nod. However, these are also points she can address.

"Scott, I have years of practice, control, and training on you. Just because you're attacking doesn't mean you're going to land a hit. And me being your anchor means you'll manage to keep control - keep your mind - when you transform. Anchors are just about staying human physically."

Scott bits his lip as he absorbs this. Allison cocks out an arm, hand on hip.

"But maybe you're right," she says. "Maybe asking you to attack me is the wrong tactic... New plan. I'm going to attack you, and you are going to try to defend yourself."

...

It's the first time Scott has seen Allison transform into her full werewolf-form. He had seen her yellow eyes, and her claws, and a quick bearing of fang, but never all together. And he never exactly took time to look in the mirror when he had transformed. It might have been less terrifying if Allison had turned into full-fledged wolf that this human-wolf hybrid.

Her very face had changed shape into something animalistic. Her eyes glow. She crouches, ready to strike. Facing something that could very well would fit into a children's picture book of monsters, fear wells up in Scott. Then Allison winks - coy and knowing. A human gesture. Scott's not so afraid. And that's when she leaps at him.

...

The wounds heal pretty fast, none too deep or too serious. Allison had to go easy on Scott the first time after all.

"Is there anything we don't heal from?" Scott asks as he watches the skin of his arm knit itself back together.

"A wound from an alpha doesn't heal the same," Allison responds first, plopping down on the threadbare couch next to Scott. The very one the Hale woman had been leaning against.

"You get a limb lopped off, it's not growing back. We're not starfish. There are a few poisons that we're particularly susceptible to, but if we get an antidote, we can survive them. Electricity is... um, bad. Hunter comes at you with a knife?" She scoffs. "We've got claws. Hunter comes at you with any of these electroshock weapons they make up, run. It won't just hurt. It incapacitates you. Used right, electricity can keep you from transforming, using your strength. It's the worst."

"And fire?" Scott asks, looking up sideways at her from his ducked head.

"It's kind of like less extreme electricity," Allison answers with a tightened jaw. "I think it's important you remember we may get more leeway with what's fatal than humans because of how fast we heal, but we're not immortal or invincible. We need the basics: food, water, oxygen. Anything in the right circumstance or the right proportions - or I guess the wrong ones - can kill you, werewolf healing powers or not."

Scott digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. It must be overwhelming for him, Allison thinks, to get all this at once. Allison had a lifetime to get used to the limitations and terror of her position in the world.

Scott's head pops up. "It was a cat."

"What was a cat?" Allison asks, confused in more than one way.

Scott doesn't answer right away. He's too busy processing his own shock. "Oh my god. Oh my god. It the mountain lion!" He hops up from his seat in urgency.

Allison stares up at him. "_What_ are you talking about?"

"Remember the night of the parent-teacher conferences?"

"Yes, I had to forge a convincing note from my mother about that," Allison says blandly. Scott's too worked up to feel the usual pang of ambient pain whenever he's reminded of Allison's deceased family.

"There was a mountain lion in the parking lot of the school," Scott says.

Allison perks an eyebrow. "I remember."

"Well," Scott persists in his story. "Earlier that night I was working at Deaton's. The examination room was locked, which by itself was unusual. And I heard this animal in there, growling and snarling and generally pissed-off sounding. I've worked around animals enough to know when the noises they're making are angry."

"Okay," Allison says, part reassuring him to go on and part still very unsure.

"Deaton said it was a rottweiler, right? But something about it didn't sit right with me." Scott's talking faster and faster in his passion. "But I couldn't figure out what, and the feeling I wrote off later as me forgetting the parent-teacher conferences. Okay?"

"I still don't get it."

"It just came to me… I just figured it out. It wasn't a rotweiller I heard locked in the examination room. It wasn't a dog at all. It was a cat! And I don't mean a cat," Scott holds his hand about a foot apart in the air to demonstration. "I mean _a cat._"He spreads his arms wide.

"Are you saying," Allison says slowly, carefully, "That your boss had a mountain lion locked up in his animal clinic and then consequently released it on the unsuspecting teachers and parents of Beacon Hills High?"

Scott bit his lip as he contemplated what Allison had just stated. "Yes."

Allison stretches her hands out flat on her denim-covered knees. "Don't you think that sounds a little ... far-fetched?"

Scott gives her a 'come on' look. "Werewolves and werewolf hunters is far -fetched... This is one plus one equals mountain lion."

She racks a lip through her teeth, still not convinced. "Are you sure you weren't hearing a rotweiller?"

"Dogs and cat don't make the same noises, Allison. Dogs bark, howl. Cats hiss, yowl. We just never deal with anything other than housecats at the clinic that it didn't click at first. I mean, why would Deaton have a mountain lion?"

"That's the question isn't it," Allison huffs. "Because say everything you suspect is true. Why would Deaton release the mountain lion in the school parking when a bunch of people were there?"

Scott pauses, his body and expression freezing. He hadn't thought this far in his realization, too caught up in the immediate understanding of a curiosity to follow it to its twisted conclusion.

"Why would anyone?" Scott asks the air.

Allison stands, grabbing his attention. "Let's think it through. The police are saying it's a mountain lion attacking people, as asinine as that is. But that's not true. It's a—"

"A werewolf," Scott finishes off the sentence for her.

"An alpha werewolf, yes. We know that. The hunters know that. Presumably no one else does."

"If Deaton doesn't know about the alpha, and should believe the police, why would he capture and release a mountain lion?" Scott ponders for the both of them.

Allison twists her arms in front of herself, and says blandly, "Because it turns out he's a sicko who gets off playing with people's fear and safety."

"He heals animals for a living. How much of a sicko can he be?" Scott challenges defensively. He doesn't want Deaton to be evil or twisted or dark. He presses the heel of his hands to his eyes. It just doesn't make sense, the whole scenario and Dr. Deaton. A man he trusts. Why would he capture a mountain lion and let it go in the school parking lot? What was to gain from it, from recreating the police's official story on the violent attacks, what they were telling people to believe even if they didn't believe it.

Deputy Stilinki's words come back to him from a few weeks ago: "_The coroner only guessed it was a mountain lion. That's what the sheriff is going with, but just something about it… doesn't sit right with me_."

Scott drops his hands from his eyes, again tonight hit with new understanding. "Because he wants people to believe it's a mountain lion attacking people."

Allison stops twisting her hair as hears this, letting it bring its own dawning upon her. "Scott, the only reason someone would do that would be because they knew it wasn't a mountain lion attacking people."

Scott is too far in his own head to hear her, or maybe he heard and didn't respond, or maybe he already knew what she had said.

"He's the alpha," Scott says, his voice filled with scratch. He looks devastated.

Allison grabs Scott by either arm, making him look at her. She doesn't need him diving into anguish now, not with potential progress and danger in the changing winds.

"Look, Scott, I'll be honest. I'm thinking that too, but only as a possibility. We're making a lot of suppositions. A lot of guesswork. I'm still not even sure about the rotweiller is a mountain lion thing." Her joke falls flat before Scott's drained eyes.

Allison gives him a little shake with her grip on his arms. "Before we decide anything, before we do anything, we need more evidence."

They formulate a plan. Scott had been entrusted with a key to the clinic over the summer when he had taken on more hours. He also knew the hours Deaton kept.

…

They go earlier the next morning before school, before the clinic's hours. There's a slight nip to the air, barely anything, but with the low-cloud covered sky, Scott think it means rain.

"I told my mom I had a morning practice," he tells Allison, blinking blearily, still tired. Allison had been waiting for him at the end of his block, urgent and ready, tension about the shoulders. It had taken Scott a long time fall asleep the night before, thinking about Dr. Deaton and the alpha and if they were one and the same.

Allison says nothing. They go in the backdoor around the parking lot although no one local would probably think anything suspicious about Scott going in the front with his own key.

It's the first time Allison had be on the inside of this place, familiar as she was with its exterior. The scent of animals was almost overwhelming upon first entrance even though they were all tucked away past a door Scott indicated as the kennel as they walked past. Scott leads her to the examination room.

"This is where he kept the mountain lion?" she asks.

Scott nods stiffly. Without conversing, they begin to search the room. Allison, unfamiliar with the place, starts with a general once-over. Scott moves directly to a filing cabinet.

The room is neat and spare, so Allison goes to more closely examine shelved a wall. She shifts carefully through books and medical equipment, not really sure what she's looking for. The sound of paper ruffling fills the space of the room.

"What's this?" Allison asks, placing her hand to a door that is not the one that leads out to the hall. She looks over her shoulder; Scott is cross legged on the floor, multiple manila folder piles about him.

"Supply closet. There's a bigger one off the main hallway, too, but that for kennel supplies. It should be unlocked," Scott answers her even as he stares down with a furrowed brow as the folder in his hands.

"What're you looking for?" asks Allison. There isn't exactly going to be documentation of Deaton being the alpha.

"I wanted to see if I could find a report for the supposed rotweiller, or see if I could find its absence."

Allison doesn't believe paperwork, in this instance, whether there or absent, will be indicative of anything, but she allows Scott his own tactics. She tests the handle of the supply closet door.

It's a small space and not much more interesting in contents than the shelves she examined out in the main room. There's rags and cleaning supplies on the lower shelves, a mundane collection of office supplies on some others. Mostly it's what might be needed in that room, the surplus of medical supplies that are out in the main area already – rolls of bandages, bottles of antiseptics, vials with parchment labels. Wait.

Allison presses aside a stack of towels to reveal something odd – a series of squat, square, glass vials sitting in a new row at the back of the self. While each bore a label on the front, none bore identifying words, but rather, dark-inked symbols and patterns Allison is unfamiliar with. Some look Celtic, if her vague knowledge of the subject serves her. These are so different from all the other containers – plastic with their manufactures list of ingredients and warnings – she had seen here today.

She lifts one off the shelf, its contents something fine and black as soot. She pulls out the stopper and extends two fingers to reach in the lip and touch it. But she can't. Allison physically cannot touch the black substance in the vial. When she got close, she was repelled as if by an invisible force. She stares at it for a while, confused and contemplating. She looks up and at the other vials, past their immediate oddness and to the contents she can see within the glass.

"Scott, can you come here please," Allison calls with a wavering voice but ultimately calm for the circumstances.

"I couldn't find any record of us treating a rotweiller here in the last month," Scott says as he slides in alongside her in the closet. He looks to Allison's face, to what she;s holding in her hands, to where she's looking.

"What is it?" he asks, even more somber.

"Then I'm guessing these aren't standard veterinary supplies," she says drolly. Scott roughly shakes his head and Allison just catches it out of the corner of her eye. She recaps the vial in her hand and point to one on the far left of the collection.

"That's mistletoe berries," she says.

"Mistletoe?"

"Despite all whimsical traditions, it's actually very poisonous. Even to us." She impresses this upon Scott with a look.

She slides her hand along the shelf. "I don't what all of these are." There are several vials filled with unidentified leaves and seeds. "But these…" Allison stops the slide of her fingers at a row of vials with shimmering purple contents. "These are wolfsbane."

There is no explanation needed for a name like that.

"And this," Allison raises the vial in her hand. "I've never seen this before now, but my mom told me about it. Warned me out it. It's mountain ash. We couldn't cross an unbroken line of this. It's the ultimate way to trap a werewolf."

She sets the vial back in its place on the shelf and turns to face Scott fully. "Scott, I don't think Deaton is the alpha. I think he's a hunter."

"I… I want to say that's not possible," Scott says, quietly and a bit sad, "But it's all right there, isn't it? The proof."

There should be something more to this, more to this moment. More impact, more fear, more protesting, but it's just something else. Any other enemy, another worry, another pound of burden to bear.

"I need to quit," Scott says.

Allison instantly grabs his sleeve. "No. Don't."

"I can't work for a hunter, Allison! He has a shelf full of werewolf poison."

"Exactly. He could've poisoned you at any time. He hasn't. Which means he probably doesn't know you're a werewolf. You and I have kept it pretty under wraps. But if you start acting odd, that will draw suspicion."

"So you just expect me to come into work here all the time like nothing's going on?"

"Yes."

It's like what Allison is doing with Hale hunters. It's all a tightrope balance of the roles they play.

…

With stilted steps, Scott walks into the animal clinic Monday afternoon. It's his first time facing Deaton since Allison's and his discovery.

Deaton's busy going over some paperwork at the front counter. Scott slips in, and is about to go past and into the back. Deaton stops him.

"Oh, Scott," Deaton says, still focusing on the paperwork. He pulls a fresh manila folder from the bottom of the pile. "Can you file this for me? I took it home by accident the other night." Deaton holds out the folder for Scott, who takes it with tentative fingers.

Scott doesn't flick it open until he's out of sight in the examination room. It's the documentation on the _rotweiller_.

Just because the documents are here in Scott's hands doesn't make the rotweiller anymore real. Scott knows what he heard that night. He knows Allison knew what she was seeing the closet - the wolfsbane, the mountain ash. It just means that Deaton is trying to cover his tracks.

But to who? To Scott?

Scott had overheard the animal, might have been the only one, unless someone had been in the clinic before Scott had arrived to work that evening. And Deaton had so deliberately handed this folder, weighing now more than paper should in Scott's hands, directly to him. Other than Deaton himself, Scott may be the only one who'd checked for a file for the supposed animal.

Scott glances around the examination room. Had Allison or he left proof of their snooping? Deaton had caught Scott curious and eavesdropping before.

The question was - did Deaton know the truth, the whole werewolfy truth, about Scott? Or did Deaton just suspect Scott of being suspicious of him? But why would normal, Beacon Hills teenager, non-werewolf Scott McCall be even a playing piece in all of this?

The pieces just didn't fit, because where did the mountain lion and the werewolf poisons factor in, in the large scheme? What was Deaton's play?

Who was Dr. Deaton?

* * *

Sorry this took so long, I work too many hours and am exhausted mentally and physically when I get free time. But hopefully I will be switching jobs soon, fingers crossed.


End file.
